COMEDIES OF SHAKESPEARE 822.8 $ 53 1851 K 72 v. 2 V The University of Michigan Shakespeare Collection in memory of Hereward Thimbleby Price 1880-1964 Professor of English 1929-1950 Professor Emeritus 1950-1964 Teacher-Scholar-Friend NATIONAL EDITION PICTORIAL Shakspere Edited by Charles Knight. COMEDIES. VOL. II. ات الحياة THE COMEDIES, HISTORIES, TRAGEDIES, AND POEMS OF WILLIAM SHAKSPERE. EDITED BY CHARLES KNIGHT. THE NATIONAL EDITION. COMEDIES. VOL. II. LONDON: CHARLES KNIGHT, 90, FLEET STREET. 1851. 822.8 553 1851 K72 ve 2 36932-241 CONTENTS. (COMEDIES, VOLUME II.) Page MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR AS YOU LIKE IT TWELFTH NIGHT MEASURE FOR MEASURE A WINTER'S TALE 1 77 169 257 341 427 · THE TEMPEST 527 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING ١١١١٣ / / / / / / / ་་ ་ [Ariosto.] S.SLY, INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 'MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING' was first printed | blance ceases. Ariosto found the incident in 1600. There was no other separate edition. The variations between the text of the quarto and that of the folio are very few. The chronology of this comedy is sufficiently fixed by the circumstance of its publication in 1600, coupled with the fact that it is not mentioned by Meres in 1598. of a lady betrayed to suspicion and danger, by the personation of her own waiting-wo- man, amongst the popular traditions of the south of Europe-this story has been traced to Spain-and he interwove it with the adventures of his Rinaldo as an integral part of his chivalrous romance. Spenser "The story is taken from Ariosto," says has told a similar story in 'The Faery Queen' Pope. To Ariosto then we turn; and we (Book II., Canto IV.). The European story, are repaid for our labour by the pleasure of which Ariosto and Spenser have thus adopted, reading that long but by no means tedious has formed also the groundwork of one of story of Genevra, which occupies the whole Bandello's Italian novels. It was for Shak- of the fifth book, and part of the sixth, of spere to surround the main incident with the 'Orlando Furioso.' "The tale is a pretty those accessories which he could nowhere comical matter," as Harrington quaintly borrow, and to make of it such a comedy as pronounces it. The famous town of St. no other man has made-a comedy not of Andrew's forms its scene and here was manners or of sentiment, but of life viewed enacted something like that piece of villainy under its profoundest aspects, whether of the by which the Claudio of Shakspere was grave or the ludicrous. The title of this deceived, and his Hero "done to death by comedy, rightly considered, is the best ex- slanderous tongues." But here the resem-positor of the idea of this comedy. It is "a INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 3 tion between life in its real essence and the aspect which it presents to those who are engaged in its struggle." The 'Much Ado about Nothing' was acted under the name of 'Benedick and Beatrice,' even during the life of its author. These two characters absorb very much of the acting interest of the play; but they cannot be separated from the play without being liable to misconstruction. The cha- racter of Beatrice cannot be understood, ex- cept in connection with the injuries done to Hero; and except we view it, as well as the characters of all the other agents in the scene, with reference to the one leading idea, that there is a real aspect of things which is to be seen by the audience and not seen by the agents. The character of Don John, for exam- ple, and the characters of his loose confede- rates, are understood by the spectators; and their villainy is purposely transparent. With- out Don John the plot could not move. He is not a rival in Claudio's love, as the "wicked duke" of Ariosto: he is simply a moody, ill-conditioned, spiteful rascal; such a one as ordinarily takes to backbiting and hinting away character. Shakspere gets rid of him as soon as he can he fires the train and dis- appears. He would be out of harmony with the happiness which he has suspended, but not destroyed; and so he passes from the stage, with representation of the contrast and contradic- | somewhat hastily we think," Any other less ingeniously absurd watchmen and night- constables would have answered the mere necessities of the action." Surely not. Make Dogberry in the slightest degree less self-satisfied, loquacious, full of the official stuff of which functionaries are still cut out, and the action breaks down before the rejec- tion of Hero by her lover. For it is not the ingenious absurdity that prevents the detection of the plot against Hero; it is the absurdity which prevents the prompt disclo- sure of it after the detection. Truly did Don Pedro say, "This learned constable is too cunning to be understood." The wise fellow, and the rich fellow, and the fellow that hath had losses, and one that hath two gowns, and everything handsome about him, nevertheless holds his prisoners fast; and when he comes to the Prince, with "Marry, sir, they have committed false report; more- over, they have spoken untruths; secondarily, they are slanders; sixth and lastly, they have belied a lady; thirdly, they have veri- fied unjust things; and, to conclude, they are lying knaves," though his method be not logical, his matter is all-sufficient. The passionate lover, the calm and sagacious prince, the doting father, were the dupes of a treachery, not well compact, and carried through by dangerous instruments. They make no effort to detect what would not have been difficult of detection; they are satisfied to quarrel and to lament. Accident discovers what intelligence could not pene- trate; and the treacherous slander is mani- fest in all its blackness to the wise Dog- berry: "Think not on him till to-morrow." But his instrumentality has been of the utmost importance. It has given us that beautiful altar-scene, that would be almost too tragical if we did not know that the "Much Ado" was "about Nothing." But that maiden's sorrows, and that father's pas- sion, are real aspects of life, however unreal be the cause of them. The instrumentality, too, of the hateful Don John has given us Dogberry and Verges. Coleridge has said, "Flat burglary as ever was committed." Here is the crowning irony of the philo- sophical poet. The players of the game of life see nothing, or see minute parts only; but the dullest by-stander has glimpses of something more. A 2 PERSONS REPRESENTED. DON PEDRO, Prince of Arragon. Appears, Act I. sc. 1. Act II. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act III. sc. 2. Act IV. sc. 1. Act V. sc. 1; sc. 3; sc. 4. DON JOHN, bastard brother to Don Pedro. Appears, Act I. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act II. sc. 1; sc. 2. Act III. sc. 2. Act IV. sc. 1. CLAUDIO, a young lord of Florence, favourite of Don Pedro. Appears, Act I. sc. 1. Act II. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act III. sc. 2. Act IV. sc. 1. Act V. sc. 1; sc. 3; sc. 4. BENEDICK, a young lord of Padua, favourite likewise of Don Pedro. Appears, Act I. sc. 1. Act II. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act III. sc. 2. Act IV. sc. 1. Act V. sc. 1; sc. 2; sc. 4. LEONATO, Governor of Messina. Appears, Act I. sc. 1; sc. 2. Act II. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act III. sc. 2; sc. 5. Act IV. sc. 1. Act V. sc. 1; sc. 4. ANTONIO, brother to Leonato. Appears, Act I. sc. 2. Act II. sc. 1. Act V. sc. 1; sc. 4. BALTHAZAR, servant to Don Pedro. Appears, Act I. sc. 1. Act II. sc. 1; sc. 3. BORACHIO, follower of Don John. Appears, Act I. sc. 3. Act II. sc. 1; sc. 2. Act III. sc. 3. Act IV. sc. 2. Act V. sc. 1. CONRADE, follower of Don John. Appears, Act I. sc. 3. Act III. sc. 3. Act IV. sc. 2. Act V. sc. 1. DOGBERRY, a city officer. Appears, Act III. sc. 3; sc. 5. Act IV. sc. 2. Act V. sc. 1. VERGES, a city officer. Appears, Act III. sc. 3; sc. 5. Act IV. sc. 2. Act V. sc. 1. A Sexton. Appears, Act IV. sc. 2. Act V. sc. 1. A Friar. Appears, Act IV. sc. 1. Act V. sc. 4. A Boy. Appears, Act II. sc. 3. HERO, daughter to Leonato. Appears, Act I. sc. 1. Act II. sc. 1. Act III. sc. 1; sc. 4. Act IV. sc. 1. Act V. sc. 4. BEATRICE, niece to Leonato. Appears, Act I. sc. 1. Act II. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act III. sc. 1; sc. 4. Act IV. sc. 1. Act V. sc. 2; sc. 4. MARGARET, a gentlewoman attending on Hero. Appears, Act II. sc. 1. Act III. sc. 1; sc. 4. Act V. sc. 2. URSULA, a gentlewoman attending on Hero. Appears, Act II. sc. 1. Act III. sc. 1; sc. 4. Act V. sc. 2; sc. 4. Messengers, Watch, and Attendants. SCENE,-MESSINA. AMI G.E SARCONT ded [Street in Messina.] VILLJANS ACT I. SCENE I.-Street in Messina. Enter LEONATO, HERO, BEATRICE, and others, with a Messengera. LEON. I learn in this letter, that Don Pedro of Arragon comes this night to Messina. MESS. He is very near by this; he was not three leagues off when I left him. LEON. How many gentlemen have you lost in this action? MESS. But few of any sort, and none of name. a * In the stage-direction of the early copies we have "Enter Leonato, governor of Messina, Innogen, his wife," &c. But the matron takes no part in the action or dialogue. She appears again in the stage-direction of the first scene of Act II. b Any sort. The obvious meaning here is, of any condition. There can be no doubt of this, for the Messenger adds, "and none of name." Yet Steevens tells us, "sort is rank, distinction." He inclines, however, to M. Mason's explanation, that "sort means of any kind whatsoever.” The word occurs again, and is used by the same speaker: "there was none such in the army of 6 [ACT I. MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. LEON. A victory is twice itself when the achiever brings home full numbers. I find here, that Don Pedro hath bestowed much honour on a young Floren- tine, called Claudio. MESS. Much deserved on his part, and equally remembered by Don Pedro: He hath borne himself beyond the promise of his age; doing, in the figure of a lamb, the feats of a lion: he hath, indeed, better bettered expectation than you must expect of me to tell you how. LEON. He hath an uncle here in Messina will be very much glad of it. MESS. I have already delivered him letters, and there appears much joy in him; even so much that joy could not show itself modest enough without a badge of bitterness. LEON. Did he break out into tears? MESS. In great measureª. LEON. A kind overflow of kindness: There are no faces truer than those that are so washed. How much better is it to weep at joy, than to joy at weep- ing! BEAT. I pray you, is signior Montanto b returned from the wars, or no? MESS. I know none of that name, lady; there was none such in the army of any sort c. LEON. What is he that you ask for, niece? HERO. My cousin means signior Benedick of Padua. MESS. O, he 's returned, and as pleasant as ever he was. 1 BEAT. He set up his bills ¹ here in Messina, and challenged Cupid at the flight: and my uncle's fool, reading the challenge, subscribed for Cupid, and chal- lenged him at the bird-bolt. I pray you, how many hath he killed and eaten in these wars? But how many hath he killed? for, indeed, I promised to eat all of his killing. LEON. Faith, niece, you tax signior Benedick too much; but he'll be meet with youd, I doubt it not. MESS. He hath done good service, lady, in these wars. BEAT. You had musty victual, and he hath holp to eat it: he's a very valiant trencherman, he hath an excellent stomach. MESS. And a good soldier too, lady. BEAT. And a good soldier to a lady:-But what is he to a lord? MESS. A lord to a lord, a man to a man; stuffed with all honourable virtues. BEAT. It is so, indeed: he is no less than a stuffed man: but for the stuffing,- Well, we are all mortal. any sort." Here the commentators adopt Warburton's explanation: "there was none such of any quality above the common." But why this difference? The Messenger knew " that name”-none in any rank. C In great measure-abundantly. ↳ Montanto. Beatrice thus nicknames Benedick, after a term of the fencing-school. • See previous note on Any sort. d • He'll be meet with you-he 'll be even with you. So in 'The Tempest:'— none of "We must prepare to meet with Caliban.' • Stuffed-stored, furnished. SCENE I.] 77 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. LEON. You must not, sir, mistake my niece: there is a kind of merry war betwixt signior Benedick and her: they never meet but there's a skirmish of wit between them. BEAT. Alas! he gets nothing by that. In our last conflict, four of his five wits a went halting off, and now is the whole man governed with one: so that if he have wit enough to keep himself warm, let him bear it for a difference b between himself and his horse; for it is all the wealth that he hath left, to be known a reasonable creature. Who is his companion now? He hath every month a new sworn brother. MESS. Is 't possible? BEAT. Very easily possible: he wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat; it ever changes with the next block³. MESS. I see, lady, the gentleman is not in your books ª. BEAT. No: an he were, I would burn my study. But, I pray you, who is his companion? Is there no young squarere now, that will make a voyage with him to the devil? MESS. He is most in the company of the right noble Claudio. BEAT. O Lord! he will hang upon him like a disease: he is sooner caught than the pestilence, and the taker runs presently mad. God help the noble Claudio! if he have caught the Benedick, it will cost him a thousand pound ere he be cured. MESS. I will hold friends with you, lady. BEAT. Do, good friend. LEON. You'll ne'er run mad, niece. * Five wits. Shakspere here uses the term wits in the sense of intellectual powers. In his 141st Sonnet he distinguishes between the five wits and the five senses:— "But my five wits, nor my five senses, can Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee." By the early writers the five wits was used synonymously with the five senses; as in Chaucer ('The Persones Tale'), "Certes delites ben after the appetites of the five wittis: as, sight, hering, smelling, savouring, and touching." Johnson says, "The wits seem to have been reckoned five, by analogy to the five senses, or the five inlets of ideas.' "" b Bear it for a difference-for a distinction-as in heraldry. • His faith-his belief generally-here, his confidence in a friend. d In your books. The meaning of this expression, which we retain to the present day, is gene- rally understood. He who is in your books—or, as we sometimes say, in your good books—is he whom you think well of whom you trust. It appears tolerably obvious, then, that the phrase has a commercial origin; and that, as he who has obtained credit, buys upon trust, is in his creditor's books, so he who has obtained in any way the confidence of another is said to be in his books. None of the commentators, however, have suggested this explanation. Johnson says it means to be in one's codicils or will;" Steevens, that it is to be in one's visiting-book,—or in the books of a university, or in the books of the Herald's Office; Farmer, and Douce, that it is to be in the list of a great man's retainers, because the names of such were entered in a book. This is the most received explanation. Our view of the matter is more homely, and for that reason it appears to us more true. C แ Squarer-quarreller. To square is to dispute-to confront hostilely. So in 'A Midsummer- Night's Dream:'- "And now they never meet in grove, or green, By fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen, But they do square.” 8 [ACT I. MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. BEAT. No, not till a hot January. MESS. Don Pedro is approached. Enter DON PEDRO, attended by BALTHAZAR and others, DON JOHN, CLAUDIO, and BENEDICK. D. PEDRO. Good signior Leonato, you are come a to meet your trouble: the fashion of the world is to avoid cost, and you encounter it. LEON. Never came trouble to my house in the likeness of your grace; for trouble being gone, comfort should remain; but when you depart from me sorrow abides, and happiness takes his leave. D. PEDRO. You embrace your charge too willingly. I think this is your daughter. LEON. Her mother hath many times told me so. BENE. Were you in doubt that you asked her? LEON. Signior Benedick, no; for then were you a child. D. PEDRO. You have it full, Benedick: we may guess by this what you are, being a man. Truly, the lady fathers herself:-Be happy, lady! for you are like an honourable father. BENE. If signior Leonato be her father, she would not have his head on her shoulders for all Messina, as like him as she is. BEAT. I wonder that you will still be talking, signior Benedick; nobody marks you. BENE. What, my dear lady Disdain! are you yet living? BEAT. Is it possible Disdain should die, while she hath such meet food to feed it as signior Benedick? Courtesy itself must convert to disdain if you come in her presence. BENE. Then is courtesy a turncoat :-But it is certain I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted: and I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart: for, truly, I love none. BEAT. A dear happiness to women; they would else have been troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank God, and my cold blood, I am of your humour for that; I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow, than a man swear he loves me. BENE. God keep your ladyship still in that mind! so some gentleman or other shall 'scape a predestinate scratched face. BEAT. Scratching could not make it worse, an 't were such a face as yours were. BENE. Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher. Beat. A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours. BENE. I would my horse had the speed of your tongue; and so good a con- tinuer: But keep your way o' God's name; I have done. BEAT. You always end with a jade's trick; I know you of old. D. PEDRO. This is the sum of all: Leonato,-signior Claudio, and signior Benedick, my dear friend Leonato hath invited you all. I tell him we a The quarto reads, are you come. SCENE 1.I. 9 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. ] + shall stay here at the least a month; and he heartily prays some occasion may detain us longer: I dare swear he is no hypocrite, but prays from his heart. LEON. If you swear, my lord, you shall not be forsworn.-Let me bid you wel- come, my lord: being reconciled to the prince your brother, I owe you all duty. D. JOHN. I thank you: I am not of many words, but I thank you. LEON. Please it your grace lead on ? D. PEDRO. Your hand, Leonato; we will go together. [Exeunt all but BENEDICK and CLAUDIO. CLAUD. Benedick, didst thou note the daughter of signior Leonato? BENE. I noted her not: but I looked on her. CLAUD. Is she not a modest young lady? BENE. Do you question me as an honest man should do, for my simple true judgment; or would you have me speak after my custom, as being a pro- fessed tyrant to their sex? CLAUD. No, I pray thee, speak in sober judgment. BENE. Why, i' faith, methinks she's too low for a high praise, too brown for a fair praise, and too little for a great praise: only this commendation I can afford her: that were she other than she is, she were unhandsome; and being no other but as she is, I do not like her. CLAUD. Thou thinkest I am in sport; I pray thee, tell me truly how thou likest her. BENE. Would you buy her, that you inquire after her? CLAUD. Can the world buy such a jewel? BENE. Yea, and a case to put it into. But speak you this with a sad brow? or do you play the flouting Jack; to tell us Cupid is a good hare-finder, and Vulcan a rare carpenter ? Come, in what key shall a man take you, to go in the song "? a 4 CLAUD. In mine eye she is the sweetest lady that ever I looked on. BENE. I can see yet without spectacles, and I see no such matter: there's her cousin, an she were not possessed with a fury, exceeds her as much in beauty as the first of May doth the last of December. But I hope you have no intent to turn husband; have you? CLAUD. I would scarce trust myself, though I had sworn the contrary, if Hero would be my wife. BENE. Is 't come to this, i' faith? Hath not the world one man but he will wear his cap with suspicion? Shall I never see a bachelor of three-score again? Go to, i'faith: an thou wilt needs thrust thy neck into a yoke, wear the print of it, and sigh away Sundays. Look, Don Pedro is returned to seek you. Re-enter DON PEDRO. D. PEDRO. What secret hath held you here, that you followed not to Leonato's? a To join in the song. 10 [ACT I. MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. BENE. I would your grace would constrain me to tell. D. PEDRO. I charge thee on thy allegiance. BENE. You hear, count Claudio: I can be secret as a dumb man, I would have you think so; but on my allegiance,-mark you this, on my allegiance :- He is in love. With who?-now that is your grace's part.-Mark, how short his answer is:-With Hero, Leonato's short daughter. CLAUD. If this were so, so were it uttered. BENE. Like the old tale, my lord: it is not so, nor 't was not so; but, indeed, God forbid it should be so." 5 CLAUD. If my passion change not shortly, God forbid it should be otherwise. D. PEDRO. Amen, if you love her; for the lady is very well worthy. CLAUD. You speak this to fetch me in, my lord. D. PEDRO. By my troth, I speak my thought. CLAUD. And in faith, my lord, I spoke mine. BENE. And by my two faiths and troths, my lord, I spoke mine. CLAUD. That I love her, I feel. D. PEDRO. That she is worthy, I know. BENE. That I neither feel how she should be loved, nor know how she should be worthy, is the opinion that fire cannot melt out of me; I will die in it at the stake. D. PEDRO. Thou wast ever an obstinate heretic in the despite of beauty. CLAUD. And never could maintain his part but in the force of his will. BENE. That a woman conceived me, I thank her; that she brought me up, I likewise give her most humble thanks: but that I will have a recheat a winded in my forehead, or hang my bugle in an invisible baldrick ↳, all women shall pardon me: Because, I will not do them the wrong to mistrust any, I will do myself the right to trust none; and the fine is, (for the which I may go the finer,) I will live a bachelor. D. PEDRO. I shall see thee, ere I die, look pale with love. C b BENE. With anger, with sickness, or with hunger, my lord; not with love: prove that ever I lose more blood with love than I will get again with drink- ing, pick out mine eyes with a ballad-maker's pen, and hang me up at the door of a brothel-house, for the sign of blind Cupid. D. PEDRO. Well, if ever thou dost fall from this faith thou wilt prove a notable argument. BENE. If I do, hang me in a bottle like a cat, and shoot at me; and he that hits me let him be clapped on the shoulder and called Adam º. D. PEDRO. Well, as time shall try: “In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke.' "d BENE. The savage bull may; but if ever this sensible Benedick bear it, pluck off the bull's horns and set them in my forehead: and let me be vilely painted; and in such great letters as they write, "Here is good horse to a Recheat-the huntsman's note to recall the hounds. b Baldrick-a belt. d This line is from Hieronymo. The fine-the conclusion. SCENE I.] 11 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. hire," let them signify under my sign,-" Here you may see Benedick the married man. CLAUD. If this should ever happen thou wouldst be horn-mad. D. PEDRO. Nay, if Cupid have not spent all his quiver in Venice, thou wilt quake for this shortly. BENE. I look for an earthquake too then. D. PEDRO. Well, you will temporize with the hours. In the mean time, good signior Benedick, repair to Leonato's; commend me to him, and tell him I will not fail him at supper; for, indeed, he hath made great preparation. BENE. I have almost matter enough in me for such an embassage; and so I commit you- CLAUD. To the tuition of God: From my house, (if I had it)— D. PEDRO. The sixth of July: Your loving friend, Benedick. BENE. Nay, mock not, mock not: The body of your discourse is sometime guarded a with fragments, and the guards are but slightly basted on neither: ere you flout old ends any further 7, examine your conscience; and so I leave you. [Exit BENEDICK. CLAUD. My liege, your highness now may do me good. D. PEDRO. My love is thine to teach; teach it but how, And thou shalt see how apt it is to learn Any hard lesson that may do thee good. CLAUD. Hath Leonato any son, my lord? D. PEDRO. No child but Hero, she 's his only heir: Dost thou affect her, Claudio ? CLAUD. O my lord, When you went onward on this ended action, I look'd upon her with a soldier's eye, That lik'd, but had a rougher task in hand Than to drive liking to the name of love : But now I am return'd, and that war-thoughts Have left their places vacant, in their rooms Come thronging soft and delicate desires, All prompting me how fair young Hero is, Saying, I lik'd her ere I went to wars. D. PEDRO. Thou wilt be like a lover presently, And tire the hearer with a book of words: If thou dost love fair Hero, cherish it; And I will break with her; And thou shalt have her b:] с [and with her father, Was 't not to this end That thou begann'st to twist so fine a story? CLAUD. How sweetly do you minister to love, That know love's grief by his complexion! • Guarded-trimmed—as with guards on apparel. b The words in brackets are not in the folio. Do you. The quarto, you do. 12 [ACT I. MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. But lest my liking might too sudden seem, I would have salv'd it with a longer treatise. D. PEDRO. What need the bridge much broader than the flood? The fairest grant is the necessity : Look, what will serve is fit: 't is once a, thou lovest; And I will fit thee with the remedy. I know we shall have revelling to-night; I will assume thy part in some disguise, And tell fair Hero I am Claudio; And in her bosom I'll unclasp my heart, And take her hearing prisoner with the force And strong encounter of my amorous tale: Then, after, to her father will I break; And, the conclusion is, she shall be thine : In practice let us put it presently. [Exeunt. SCENE II.—A Room in Leonato's House. Enter LEONATO and ANTONIO. LEON. How now, brother? Where is my cousin, your son? Hath he provided this music? ANT. He is very busy about it. But, brother, I can tell you news yet dreamt not of. LEON. Are they good? C b that you ANT. As the event stamps them; but they have a good cover; they show well outward. The prince and count Claudio, walking in a thick-pleached alley in my orchard, were thus overheard by a man of mine: The prince dis- covered to Claudio that he loved my niece, your daughter, and meant to acknowledge it this night in a dance; and, if he found her accordant, he meant to take the present time by the top, and instantly break with you of it. LEON. Hath the fellow any wit that told you this? ANT. A good sharp fellow; I will send for him, and question him yourself. LEON. No, no; we will hold it as a dream, till it appear itself:-but I will acquaint my daughter withal, that she may be the better prepared for an answer, if peradventure this be true. Go you, and tell her of it. [Several persons cross the stage.] Cousins, you know what you have to do.—O, I cry you mercy, friend: go you with me, and I will use your skill:-Good cousin, have a care this busy time. [Exeunt. a Once-once for all. So in 'Coriolanus:' "Once, if he do require our voices we ought not to deny him." In the quarto, strange news. In the quarto, thus much overheard. SCENE III.] 13 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. SCENE III.-Another Room in Leonato's House. Enter DON JOHN and CONRADE. a CON. What the good year 2, my lord! why are you thus out of measure sad? D. JOHN. There is no measure in the occasion that breeds, therefore the sadness is without limit. CON. You should hear reason. D. JOHN. And when I have heard it, what blessing bringeth it? b CON. If not a present remedy, yet a patient sufferance. D. JOHN. I wonder that thou, being (as thou say'st thou art) born under Saturn, goest about to apply a moral medicine to a mortifying mischief. I cannot hide what I am: I must be sad when I have cause, and smile at no man's jests; eat when I have stomach, and wait for no man's leisure; sleep when I am drowsy, and tend on no man's business; laugh when I am merry, and claw no man in his humour. CON. Yea, but you must not make the full show of this, till you may do it with- out controlment. You have of late stood out against your brother, and he hath ta'en you newly into his grace; where it is impossible you should take root, but by the fair weather that you make yourself: it is needful that you frame the season for your own harvest. D. JOHN. I had rather be a canker in a hedge than a rose in his grace; and it better fits my blood to be disdained of all than to fashion a carriage to rob love from any in this, though I cannot be said to be a flattering honest man, it must not be denied that I am a plain-dealing villain. I am trusted with a muzzle, and enfranchised with a clog; therefore I have decreed not to sing in my cage: If I had my mouth I would bite; if I had my liberty I would do my liking in the mean time, let me be that I am, and seek not to alter me. CON. Can you make no use of your discontent ? D. JOHN. I make all use of it, for I use it only. Who comes here? What news, Borachio ? Enter BORACHIO. BORA. I came yonder from a great supper; the prince, your brother, is royally entertained by Leonato; and I can give you intelligence of an intended marriage. D. JOHN. Will it serve for any model to build mischief on? What is he for a fool that betroths himself to unquietness? d BORA. Marry, it is your brother's right hand. a Good year. See Note on 'King Lear,' Act V., Scene 3. b Yet. The quarto, at least. • In the quarto, true root. a What is he for a fool. Mr. Dyce says this is " an equivalent for-What manner of fool is he, -What fool is he?" Gifford calls this mode of expression, "pure German, or, as the authorised phrase seems to be, pure Saxon.” 14 [ACT I. MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. D. JOHN. Who? the most exquisite Claudio? BORA. Even he. D. JOHN. A proper squire! And who, and who? which way looks he? BORA. Marry, on Hero, the daughter and heir of Leonato. D. JOHN. A very forward March-chick! How came you to this ? BORA. Being entertained for a perfumer, as I was smoking a musty room, comes me the prince and Claudio, hand in hand, in sad a conference: I whipt b behind the arras; and there heard it agreed upon, that the prince should woo Hero for himself, and having obtained her give her to count Claudio. D. JOHN. Come, come, let us thither; this may prove food to my displeasure : that young start-up hath all the glory of my overthrow; if I can cross him any way I bless myself every way: You are both sure, and will assist me? CON. To the death, my lord. D. JOHN. Let us to the great supper: their cheer is the greater that I am subdued: 'Would the cook were of my mind!-Shall we go prove what's to be done? BORA. We'll wait upon your lordship. [Exeunt. SARGENT • Sad-serious. b The quarto has, "I whipt me." WHIMPER [SCENE II. "Walking in a thick-pleached alley in my orchard."] [SCENE I. "My visor is Philemon's roof; within the house is Jove."] J.JACKSON ACT II. SCENE I.-A Hall in Leonato's House. Enter LEONATO, ANTONIO, HERO, BEATRICE, and others. LEON. Was not count John here at supper? ANT. I saw him not. BEAT. How tartly that gentleman looks! I never can see him but I am heart- burned an hour after. HERO. He is of a very melancholy disposition. BEAT. He were an excellent man that were made just in the mid-way between him and Benedick; the one is too like an image, and says nothing; and the other too like my lady's eldest son, evermore tattling. LEON. Then half signior Benedick's tongue in count John's mouth, and half count John's melancholy in signior Benedick's face,— BEAT. With a good leg, and a good foot, uncle, and money enough in his purse, such a man would win any woman in the world,—if he could get her good will. 16 [ACT II. MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. LEON. By my troth, niece, thou wilt never get thee a husband if thou be so shrewd of thy tongue. ANT. In faith, she 's too curst. BEAT. Too curst is more than curst: I shall lessen God's sending that way: for it is said, "God sends a curst cow short horns;" but to a cow too curst he sends none. LEON. So, by being too curst God will send you no horns. BEAT. Just, if he send me no husband; for the which blessing I am at him upon my knees every morning and evening: Lord! I could not endure a husband with a beard on his face: I had rather lie in the woollen. LEON. You may light upon a husband that hath no beard. BEAT. What should I do with him? dress him in my apparel, and make him my waiting-gentlewoman? He that hath a beard is more than a youth; and he that hath no beard is less than a man: and he that is more than a youth is not for me; and he that is less than a man I am not for him: Therefore I will even take sixpence in earnest of the bearward ª, and lead his apes into hell. LEON. Well then, go you into hell? BEAT. No; but to the gate; and there will the devil meet me, like an old cuckold, with horns on his head, and say, "Get you to heaven, Beatrice, get you to heaven; here's no place for you maids: so deliver I up my apes, and away to Saint Peter: for the heavens, he shows me where the bachelors sit, and there live we as merry as the day is long. ANT. Well, niece [to HERO], I trust you will be ruled by your father. BEAT. Yes, faith; it is my cousin's duty to make courtesy, and say, “As it please you: "—but yet for all that, cousin, let him be a handsome fellow, or else make another courtesy, and say, "Father, as it please me." LEON. Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband. BEAT. Not till God make men of some other metal than earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be over-mastered with a piece of valiant dust? to make account of her life to a clod of wayward marl? No, uncle, I'll none: Adam's sons are my brethren; and truly I hold it a sin to match in my kindred. LEON. Daughter, remember what I told you: if the prince do solicit you in that kind, you know your answer. BEAT. The fault will be in the music, cousin, if you be not wooed in good time: if the prince be too important", tell him there is measure in everything, and so dance out the answer c. For hear me, Hero; Wooing, wedding, and repenting, is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinque-pace: the first suit is hot and hasty, like a Scotch jig, and full as fantastical; the wedding, man- * Bearward. In the original berrord. The modern editions have bear-herd. In 'Henry VI., Part II.,' it is bearard. The pronunciation is indicated by both of the ancient modes of spelling; and bearward appears to be the word meant, when rapidly uttered. b Important-importunate. • The technical meaning of measure, a particular sort of dance, is here played upon. Beatrice's own description of that dance, "full of state and ancientry," is the most characteristic account we have of it. See Romeo and Juliet,' Illustrations of Act I. SCENE I.] 17 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. nerly-modest, as a measure full of state and ancientry; and then comes repentance, and, with his bad legs, falls into the cinque-pace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave. LEON. Cousin, you apprehend passing shrewdly. BEAT. I have a good eye, uncle; I can see a church by daylight. LEON. The revellers are entering, brother; make good room. Enter DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK, BALTHAZAR, DON JOHN, BORACHIO, MARGARET, URSULA, and others, masked. D. PEDRO. Lady, will you walk about with your friend? HERO. So you walk softly, and look sweetly, and say nothing, I am yours for the walk; and, especially, when I walk away. D. PEDRO. With me in your company? HERO. I may say so when I please. D. PEDRO. And when please you to say so ? HERO. When I like your favour; for God defend a the lute should be like the case! D. PEDRO. My visor is Philemon's roof; within the house is Jove º. HERO. Why, then your visor should be thatch'd. D. PEDRO. BENE. Well, I would you did like me. Speak low, if you speak love. [Takes her aside. Marg. So would not I, for your own sake, for I have many ill qualities. BENE. Which is one? MARG. I say my prayers aloud. BENE. I love you the better; the hearers may cry, Amen c. MARG. God match me with a good dancer! BALTH. Amen. MARG. And God keep him out of my sight when the dance is done!—Answer, clerk. BALTH. No more words; the clerk is answered. URS. I know you well enough; you are signior Antonio. ANT. At a word, I am not. URS. I know you by the waggling of your head. ANT. To tell you true, I counterfeit him. URS. You could never do him so ill-well, unless you were the very man: Here's his dry hand up and down; you are he, you are he. ANT. At a word, I am not. a Defend-forbid. This line, which is in the rhythm of Chapman's Homer and Golding's Ovid, is an allusion to the story of 'Baucis and Philemon;' and perhaps Shakspere was thinking of Golding's version of the original. The subsequent speeches of Hero and Don Pedro complete a couplet. • Tieck supposes that these three speeches, which are assigned to Benedick, really belong to Balthazar ;-that there is a series of dialogues between four masked pairs-Hero and Don Pedro, Margaret and Balthazar, Ursula and Antonio, Beatrice and Benedick. He is probably right; but still Benedick may first address Margaret, and then pass on, leaving Balthazar with her. COMEDIES.-VOL. II. B 18 [ACT II. MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. URS. Come, come; do you think I do not know you by your excellent wit? Can virtue hide itself? Go to, mum, you are he: graces will appear, and there's an end. BEAT. Will you not tell me who told you so? BENE. No, you shall pardon me. BEAT. Nor will you not tell me who you are? BENE. Not now. BEAT. That I was disdainful,—and that I had my good wit out of the 'Hundred merry Tales;'¹º-Well, this was signior Benedick that said so. BENE. What's he? BEAT. I am sure you know him well enough. BENE. Not I, believe me. BEAT. Did he never make you laugh? BENE. I pray you, what is he? BEAT. Why, he is the prince's jester: a very dull fool; only his gift is in devis- ing impossible slanders ª: none but libertines delight in him; and the com- mendation is not in his wit but in his villainy; for he both pleaseth men and angers them, and then they laugh at him and beat him: I am sure he is in the fleet; I would he had boarded me. b BENE. When I know the gentleman, I 'll tell him what you say. BEAT. Do, do: he 'll but break a comparison or two on me; which, peradven- ture, not marked, or not laughed at, strikes him into melancholy; and then there's a partridge' wing saved, for the fool will eat no supper that night. [Music within.] We must follow the leaders. BENE. In every good thing. BEAT. Nay, if they lead to any ill, I will leave them at the next turning. [Dance. Then exeunt all but DON JOHN, BORACHIO, and CLAUDIO. D. JOHN. Sure, my brother is amorous on Hero, and hath withdrawn her father to break with him about it: The ladies follow her, and but one visor re- mains. BORA. And that is Claudio: I know him by his bearing. D. JOHN. Are not you signior Benedick? CLAUD. You know me well; I am he. D. JOHN. Signior, you are very near my brother in his love: he is enamoured on Hero; I pray you dissuade him from her, she is no equal for his birth: you may do the part of an honest man in it. CLAUD. How know you he loves her? D. JOHN. I heard him swear his affection. BORA. So did I too; and he swore he would marry her to-night. D. JOHN. Come, let us to the banquet. CLAUD. Thus answer I in name of Benedick, [Exeunt DON JOHN and BORACHIO. * In a subsequent passage of this scene we have "impossible conveyance." The commentators make difficulties of both these passages, and would change the adjective to impassable or import- able. This is, indeed, to "speak by the card." b Boarded-accosted. SCENE I.] 19 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. • But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio. 'T is certain so;-the prince woos for himself. Friendship is constant in all other things, Save in the office and affairs of love: Therefore, all hearts in love use their own tongues; Let every eye negotiate for itself, And trust no agent: for beauty is a witch, Against whose charms faith melteth into blood. This is an accident of hourly proof, Which I mistrusted not: Farewell, therefore, Hero! BENE. Count Claudio? Re-enter BENEDICK. CLAUD. Yea, the same. BENE. Come, will you go with me? CLAUD. Whither? BENE. Even to the next willow, about your own business, count a. What fashion will you wear the garland of? About your neck, like an usurer's chain ? or under your arm, like a lieutenant's scarf? You must wear it one way, for the prince hath got your Hero. CLAUD. I wish him joy of her. BENE. Why, that's spoken like an honest drover; so they sell bullocks. But did you think the prince would have served you thus? CLAUD. I pray you, leave me. BENE. Ho! now you strike like the blind man; 't was the boy that stole your meat and you'll beat the post. CLAUD. If it will not be, I'll leave you. [Exit. BENE. Alas! poor hurt fowl! Now will he creep into sedges. But that my lady Beatrice should know me, and not know me! The prince's fool!-Ha, it may be I go under that title, because I am merry.-Yea; but so; I am apt to do myself wrong: I am not so reputed: it is the base though bitter disposition of Beatrice, that puts the world into her person, and so gives me out. Well, I'll be revenged as I may. Re-enter Don PEDRO. D. PEDRO. Now, signior, where's the count; Did you see him? с BENE. Troth, my lord, I have played the part of lady Fame. I found him here as melancholy as a lodge in a warrend; I told him, and I think tolde him a Count. The quarto has the more ancient and more poetical county. b An usurer's chain-the ornament of a wealthy citizen or goldsmith. The Jews were not in Shakspere's time the only class who took use for money. • Base though bitter. So the old copies. But the phrase has been changed into "the base, the bitter." Benedick means to say that the disposition of Beatrice, which pretends to speak the opinion of the world, is a grovelling disposition, although it is sharp and satirical. d It has been supposed that this image of solitariness was suggested by the "lodge in a garden of cucumbers" of the Hebrew prophet. Shakspere has another picture of loneliness-" at the moated grange resides this dejected Mariana.”—(' Measure for Measure,' Act III., Scene 1.) • In the quarto, I told him. B 2 20 [ACT II. MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. true, that your grace had got the willa of this young lady; and I offered him my company to a willow tree, either to make him a garland, as being forsaken, b or to bind him a rod, as being worthy to be whipped. D. PEDRO. To be whipped! What's his fault? BENE. The flat transgression of a schoolboy; who being overjoyed with finding a bird's nest shows it his companion, and he steals it. D. PEDRO. Wilt thou make a trust a transgression? The transgression is in the stealer. BENE. Yet it had not been amiss the rod had been made, and the garland too; for the garland he might have worn himself; and the rod he might have bestowed on you, who, as I take it, have stolen his bird's nest. D. PEDRO. I will but teach them to sing, and restore them to the owner. BENE. If their singing answer your saying, by my faith, you say honestly. D. PEDRO. The lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you; the gentleman that danced with her told her she is much wronged by you. C BENE. O, she misused me past the endurance of a block: an oak, but with one green leaf on it, would have answered her; my very visor began to assume life and scold with her: She told me, not thinking I had been myself, that I was the prince's jester, and that I was duller than a great thaw; huddling jest upon jest, with such impossible conveyance upon me, that I stood like a man at a mark, with a whole army shooting at me: She speaks poniards, and every word stabs: if her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her; she would infect to the north star. I would not marry her though she were endowed with all that Adam had left him before he transgressed: she would have made Hercules have turned spit; yea, and have cleft his club to make the fire too. Come, talk not of her : you shall find her the infernal Até in good apparel. I would to God some scholar would conjure her; for, certainly, while she is here, a man may live as quiet in hell as in a sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose because they would go thither; so, indeed, all disquiet, horror, and perturbation follow her. Re-enter CLAUDIO, BEATRICE, LEONATO, and HERO. D. PEDRO. Look, here she comes. BENE. Will your grace command me any service to the world's end? I will go on the slightest errand now to the antipodes, that you can devise to send me on; I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the farthest inch of Asia; bring you the length of Prester John's foot¹¹; fetch you a hair off the great Cham's beard; do you any embassage to the Pigmies,—rather than hold three words' conference with this harpy: You have no employment for me? D. PEDRO. None, but to desire your good company. d BENE. O God, sir, here's a dish I love not; I cannot endure my lady Tongue. "In the quarto, good will. • The quarto omits and. [Exit. In the quarto, bind him up. a My, in the quarto. The folio has this. SCENE I.] 21 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. D. PEDRO. Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of signior Benedick. BEAT. Indeed, my lord, he lent it me a while; and I gave him use for it—a double heart for a single one: marry, once before he won it of me with false dice, therefore your grace may well say I have lost it. D. PEDRO. You have put him down, lady, you have put him down. BEAT. So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should prove the mother of fools. I have brought count Claudio, whom you sent me to seek. D. PEDRO. Why, how now, count? wherefore are you sad? CLAUD. Not sad, my lord. D. PEDRO. How then? Sick? CLAUD. Neither, my lord. BEAT. The count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well: but civil, count; civil as an orange, and something of thata jealous complexion. D. PEDRO. I' faith, lady, I think your blazon to be true; though I 'll be sworn, if he be so, his conceit is false. Here, Claudio, I have wooed in thy name, and fair Hero is won; I have broke with her father, and his good will obtained: name the day of marriage, and God give thee joy! LEON. Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes; his grace hath made the match, and all grace say Amen to it! BEAT. Speak, count, 't is your cue. CLAUD. Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were but little happy if I could say how much. Lady, as you are mine, I am yours: I give away myself for you, and dote upon the exchange. BEAT. Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth with a kiss, and let not him speak neither. D. PEDRO. In faith, lady, you have a merry heart. BEAT. Yea, my lord, I thank it; poor fool, it keeps on the windy side of care: -My cousin tells him in his ear that he is in her heart. CLAUD. And so she doth, cousin. BEAT. Good lord, for alliance!—Thus goes every one to the world but I, and I am sunburned b; I may sit in a corner, and cry, heigh-ho! for a husband. D. PEDRO. Lady Beatrice, I will get you one. BEAT. I would rather have one of your father's getting: Hath your grace ne'er a brother like you? Your father got excellent husbands, if a maid could come by them. D. PEDRO. Will you have me, lady? BEAT. No, my lord, unless I might have another for working-days; your grace is too costly to wear every day: But, I beseech your grace, pardon me; I was born to speak all mirth, and no matter. D. PEDRO. Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you; 3 for, out of question, you were born in a merry hour. That, in the quarto. The folio, a. ↳ Shakspere, in 'All's Well that Ends Well,' has used the phrase to go to the world in the sense of being married. We have a parallel use of sunburned in Troilus and Cressida: "The Grecian dames were sunburn'd, The splinter of a lance." and not worth 22 [ACT II. MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [Exit BEATRICE. BEAT. No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there was a star danced, and under that I was born.-Cousins, God give you joy! LEON. Niece, will you look to those things I told you of? BEAT. I cry you mercy, uncle. By your grace's pardon. D. PEDRO. By my troth, a pleasant-spirited lady. LEON. There's little of the melancholy element in her, my lord: she is never sad, but when she sleeps; and not ever sad then: for I have heard my daughter say she hath often dreamt of unhappiness, and waked herself with laughing. D. PEDRO. She cannot endure to hear tell of a husband. LEON. O, by no means; she mocks all her wooers out of suit. D. PEDRO. She were an excellent wife for Benedick. LEON. O Lord, my lord, if they were but a week married they would talk them- selves mad. D. PEDRO. Count Claudio, when mean you to go to church? CLAUD. To-morrow, my lord: Time goes on crutches till Love have all his rites. LEON. Not till Monday, my dear son, which is hence a just seven-night; and a time too brief too, to have all things answer mindª. D. PEDRO. Come, you shake the head at so long a breathing; but I warrant thee, Claudio, the time shall not go dully by us; I will, in the interim, undertake one of Hercules' labours; which is, to bring signior Benedick and the lady Beatrice into a mountain of affection, the one with the other. I would fain have it a match; and I doubt not but to fashion it, if you three will but minister such assistance as I shall give you direction. LEON. My lord, I am for you, though it cost me ten nights' watchings. CLAUD. And I, my lord. D. PEDRO. And you too, gentle Hero ? HERO. I will do any modest office, my lord, to help my cousin to a good husband. D. PEDRO. And Benedick is not the unhopefullest husband that I know: thus far can I praise him; he is of a noble strain", of approved valour, and con- firmed honesty. I will teach you how to humour your cousin, that she fall in love with Benedick :—and I, with your two helps, will so practise on Benedick, that, in despite of his quick wit and his queasy stomach, he shall fall in love with Beatrice. If we can do this, Cupid is no longer an archer ; his glory shall be ours, for we are the only love-gods. Go in with me, and I will tell you my drift. [Exeunt. ล Mind, in the folio. In the quarto, "my mind." b Strain-lineage. SCENE II.] 23 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. SCENE II.—Another Room in Leonato's House. Enter DON JOHN and BORACHIO. D. JOHN. It is so; the count Claudio shall marry the daughter of Leonato. BORA. Yea, my lord, but I can cross it. D. JOHN. Any bar, any cross, any impediment will be medicinable to me: I am sick in displeasure to him; and whatsoever comes athwart his affection, ranges evenly with mine. How canst thou cross this marriage? BORA. Not honestly, my lord; but so covertly that no dishonesty shall appear in me. D. JOHN. Show me briefly how. BORA. I think I told your lordship, a year since, how much I am in the favour of Margaret, the waiting-gentlewoman to Hero. D. JOHN. I remember. BORA. I can, at any unseasonable instant of the night, appoint her to look out at her lady's chamber-window. D. JOHN. What life is in that, to be the death of this marriage? BORA. The poison of that lies in you to temper. Go you to the prince your brother; spare not to tell him, that he hath wronged his honour in marry- ing the renowned Claudio (whose estimation do you mightily hold up) to a contaminated stale, such a one as Hero. D. JOHN. What proof shall I make of that? BORA. Proof enough to misuse the prince, to vex Claudio, to undo Hero, and kill Leonato: Look you for any other issue? D. JOHN. Only to despite them, I will endeavour anything. BORA. Go then, find me a meet hour to draw don Pedro and the count Claudio, alone: tell them that you know that Hero loves me; intend a kind of zeal both to the prince and Claudio, as-in a love of your brother's honour, who hath made this match; and his friend's reputation, who is thus like to be cozened with the semblance of a maid,—that you have discovered thus. They will scarcely believe this without trial: offer them instances; which shall bear no less likelihood than to see me at her chamber-window; hear me call Margaret, Hero; hear Margaret term me Claudioa; and bring them to see this, the very night before the intended wedding: for, in the mean time, I will so fashion the matter, that Hero shall be absent; and there shall appear such seeming truth of Hero's disloyalty, that jealousy shall be called assurance, and all the preparation overthrown. D. JOHN. Grow this to what adverse issue it can, I will put it in practice: Be cunning in the working this, and thy fee is a thousand ducats. BORA. Be thou constant in the accusation, and my cunning shall not shame me. D. JOHN. I will presently go learn their day of marriage. [Exeunt. a Theobald and other editors would here read Borachio. The very expression term me shows that the speaker assumes that Margaret, by connivance, would call him by the name of Claudio. 24 [АСТ II. MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. BENE. Boy! SCENE III.-Leonato's Garden. Enter BENEDICK and a Boy. Boy. Signior. BENE. In my chamber-window lies a book; bring it hither to me in the orchard. Boy. I am here already, sir. BENE. I know that;-but I would have thee hence, and here again. [Exit Boy.] -I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviours to love, will, after he hath laughed at such shallow follies in others, become the argument of his own scorn, by falling in love: And such a man is Claudio. I have known when there was no music with him but the drum and the fife; and now had he rather hear the tabor and the pipe: I have known when he would have walked ten mile afoot, to see a good armour; and now will he lie ten nights awake, carving the fashion of a new doublet 12. He was wont to speak plain, and to the purpose, like an honest man and a soldier; and now is he turned orthographer; his words are a very fantastical banquet, just so many strange dishes. May I be so converted, and see with these eyes? I cannot tell; I think not: I will not be sworn but love may transform me to an oyster; but I 'll take my oath on it, till he have made an oyster of me, he shall never make me such a fool. One woman is fair; yet I am well: another is wise; yet I am well: another virtuous; yet I am well: but till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace. Rich she shall be, that's certain ; wise, or I'll none; virtuous, or I'll never cheapen her; fair, or I 'll never look on her; mild, or come not near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall be of what colour it please God. Ha! the prince and monsieur Love! I will hide me in the arbour. Enter DON PEDRO, LEONATO, and CLAUDIO. D. PEDRO. Come, shall we hear this music? CLAUD. Yea, my good lord :-How still the evening is, As hush'd on purpose to grace harmony! D. PEDRO. See you where Benedick hath hid himself? CLAUD. O, very well, my lord: the music ended, We'll fit the kid fox with a pennyworth. Enter BALTHAZAR, with music. D. PEDRO. Come, Balthazar, we 'll hear that song again. BALTH. O good my lord, tax not so bad a voice To slander music any more than once. D. PEDRO. It is the witness still of excellency, To put a strange face on his own perfection :- [Withdraws. SCENE III.] 25 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. I pray thee, sing, and let me woo no more. BALTH. Because you talk of wooing, I will sing: Since many a wooer doth commence his suit To her he thinks not worthy; yet he woos; Yet will he swear, he loves. D. PEDRO. Nay, pray thee, come: Or, if thou wilt hold longer argument, Do it in notes. BALTH. Note this before my notes, There's not a note of mine that 's worth the noting. D. PEDRO. Why, these are very crotchets that he speaks; Note notes, forsooth, and noting a! [Music. BENE. NOW, "Divine air! now is his soul ravished!-Is it not strange that sheep's guts should hale souls out of men's bodies ?-Well, a horn for my money, when all 's done. BALTHAZAR sings. I. BALTH. Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more; Men were deceivers ever; One foot in sea, and one on shore; To one thing constant never: Then sigh not so, But let them go, And be you blithe and bonny; Converting all your sounds of woe Into, Hey nonny, nonny. II. Sing no more ditties, sing no mo Of dumps so dull and heavy; The fraud of men was ever so, Since summer first was leavy. Then sigh not so, &c. D. PEDRO. By my troth, a good song. BALTH. And an ill singer, my lord. D. PEDRO. Ha? no; no, faith; thou singest well enough for a shift. BENE. [Aside.] An he had been a dog that should have howled thus, they would have hanged him: and, I pray God, his bad voice bode no mischief! I had as lief have heard the night-raven, come what plague could have come after it. D. PEDRO. Yea, marry [to CLAUDIO.];-Dost thou hear, Balthazar? I pray thee, get us some excellent music; for to-morrow night we would have it at the lady Hero's chamber-window. BALTH. The best I can, my lord. D. PEDRO. Do so farewell. [Exit BALTHAZAR.] Come hither, Leonato: What " The original copies read nothing. 26 [ACT II. MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. was it you told me of to-day? that your niece Beatrice was in love with signior Benedick? CLAUD. O, ay:-Stalk on, stalk on the fowl sits 13 [Aside to PEDRO.] I did never think that lady would have loved any man. LEON. No, nor I neither; but most wonderful that she should so dote on signior Benedick, whom she hath in all outward behaviours seemed ever to abhor. BENE. Is 't possible? Sits the wind in that corner? [Aside. LEON. By my troth, my lord, I cannot tell what to think of it; but that she loves him with an enraged affection,-it is past the infinite of thought. D. PEDRO. May be, she doth but counterfeit. CLAUD. 'Faith, like enough. LEON. O God! counterfeit! There was never counterfeit of passion came so near the life of passion, as she discovers it. D. PEDRO. Why, what effects of passion shows she? CLAUD. Bait the hook well; this fish will bite. [Aside. LEON. What effects, my lord! She will sit you,-You heard my daughter tell you how. CLAUD. She did, indeed. D. PEDRO. How, how, I pray you? You amaze me: I would have thought her spirit had been invincible against all assaults of affection. LEON. I would have sworn it had, my lord; especially against Benedick. BENE. [Aside.] I should think this a gull, but that the white-bearded fellow speaks it; knavery cannot, sure, hide himself in such reverence. CLAUD. He hath ta'en the infection; hold it up. D. PEDRO. Hath she made her affection known to Benedick? [Aside. Shall I," says she, LEON. No; and swears she never will: that 's her torment. CLAUD. "T is true, indeed; so your daughter says: that have so oft encountered him with scorn, write to him that I love him?” LEON. This says she now when she is beginning to write to him: for she 'll be up twenty times a night: and there will she sit in her smock, till she have writ a sheet of paper :-my daughter tells us all. CLAUD. Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a pretty jest your daughter told us of. LEON. O!-When she had writ it, and was reading it over, she found Benedick and Beatrice between the sheet. CLAUD. That. LEON. O she tore the letter into a thousand halfpence a; railed at herself, that she should be so immodest to write to one that she knew would flout her: • Steevens ingeniously suggests that a farthing, and perhaps a halfpenny, was used to signify any small particle or division. So, in the character of the Prioress in Chaucer's Prologue to the 'Canterbury Tales:'— "That in hirre cuppe was no ferthing sene Of grese, whan she dronken hadde hire draught." Capell says that the allusion is to the cross of the old silver penny, which could be broken into halfpence or farthings, as Beatrice is said to have torn her letter. SCENE III.] 27 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. I measure him," says she, "by my own spirit; for I should flout him, if he writ to me; yea, though I love him, I should." CLAUD. Then down upon her knees she falls, weeps, sobs, beats her heart, tears her hair, prays, curses;—“ O sweet Benedick! God give me patience! LEON. She doth indeed; my daughter says so and the ecstacy hath so much overborne her, that my daughter is sometime afeard she will do a desperate outrage to herself. It is very true. D. PEDRO. It were good that Benedick knew of it by some other, if she will not discover it. CLAUD. To what end? He would but make a sport of it, and torment the poor lady worse. D. PEDRO. An he should, it were an alms to hang him: She's an excellent sweet lady; and, out of all suspicion, she is virtuous. CLAUD. And she is exceeding wise. D. PEDRO. In everything, but in loving Benedick. LEON. O my lord, wisdom and blood combating in so tender a body, we have ten proofs to one that blood hath the victory. I am sorry for her, as I have just cause, being her uncle and her guardian. D. PEDRO. I would she had bestowed this dotage on me; I would have daff'd all other respects, and made her half myself: I pray you, tell Benedick of it, and hear what he will say. LEON. Were it good, think you? CLAUD. Hero thinks surely she will die; for she says she will die if he love her not; and she will die ere she make her love known; and she will die if he woo her, rather than she will 'bate one breath of her accustomed crossness. D. PEDRO. She doth well: if she should make tender of her love 't is very pos- sible he'll scorn it: for the man, as you know all, hath a contemptible spirit. CLAUD. He is a very proper man. D. PEDRO. He hath, indeed, a good outward happiness. CLAUD. 'Fore God, and in my mind, very wise. D. PEDRO. He doth, indeed, show some sparks that are like wit. LEON. And I take him to be valiant. D. PEDRO. AS Hector, I assure you: and in the managing of quarrels you may see a he is wise; for either he avoids them with great discretion, or under- takes them with a Christian-like fear. LEON. If he do fear God he must necessarily keep peace; if he break the peace he ought to enter into a quarrel with fear and trembling. D. PEDRO. And so will he do; for the man doth fear God, howsoever it seems not in him, by some large jests he will make. Well, I am sorry for your niece : Shall we go see Benedick, and tell him of her love? CLAUD. Never tell him, my lord; let her wear it out with good counsel. LEON. Nay, that's impossible; she may wear her heart out first. * In the quarto, say. b In the quarto, most Christian-like. 28 [ACT II. MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. D. PEDRO. Well, we will hear further of it by your daughter. Let it cool the while. I love Benedick well and I could wish he would modestly examine himself to see how much he is unworthy to have so good a lady. LEON. My lord, will you walk? dinner is ready. CLAUD. If he do not dote on her upon this, I will never trust my expectation. [Aside. D. PEDRO. Let there be the same net spread for her: and that must your daughter and her gentlewoman carry. The sport will be, when they hold one an opinion of another's dotage, and no such matter; that's the scene that I would see, which will be merely a dumb-show. Let us send her to call him in to dinner. [Aside. : [Exeunt DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, and LEONATO. BENEDICK advances from the arbour. BENE. This can be no trick: The conference was sadly borne.-They have the truth of this from Hero. They seem to pity the lady; it seems her affec- tions have their a full bent. Love me! why, it must be requited. I hear how I am censured they say I will bear myself proudly, if I perceive the love come from her; they say too, that she will rather die than give any sign of affection.—I did never think to marry-I must not seem proud :-Happy are they that hear their detractions, and can put them to mending. They say the lady is fair; 't is a truth, I can bear them witness and virtuous— 't is so, I cannot reprove it; and wise, but for loving me :-By my troth, it is no addition to her wit;- -nor no great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her.—I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me, because I have railed so long against mar- riage: But doth not the appetite alter? A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age: Shall quips, and sentences, and these paper bullets of the brain, awe a man from the career of his humour? No: The world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.-Here comes Beatrice; By this day, she's a fair lady: I do spy some marks of love in her. Enter BEATRICE. BEAT. Against my will, I am sent to bid you come in to dinner. BENE. Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains. BEAT. I took no more pains for those thanks, than you take pains to thank me; if it had been painful I would not have come. BENE. You take pleasure, then, in the message? BEAT. Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knife's point, and choke a daw withal :—You have no stomach, signior; fare you well. [Exit. BENE. Ha! "Against my will, I am sent to bid you come in to dinner ”—there 's 8 Their. So the quarto; the folio, the. SCENE III.] 29 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. a double meaning in that. 'I took no more pains for those thanks, than you took pains to thank me "-that's as much as to say, Any pains that I take for you is as easy as thanks :-If I do not take pity of her I am a villain; if I do not love her I am a Jew: I will go get her picture. [Exit. G-F SARGENT. [SCENE III. CONTUMAMELI W T-GREEN-56: "Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more."] ? 田 ​[SCENE III. "Are you good men and true?"] ACT III. SCENE I.-Leonato's Garden. Enter HERO, MARGARET, and Ursula. HERO. Good Margaret, run thee to the parlour; There shalt thou find my cousin Beatrice Proposing with the prince and Claudio: Whisper her ear, and tell her, I and Ursula SCENE I.] 31 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. Walk in the orchard, and our whole discourse Is all of her; say, that thou overheard'st us; And bid her steal into the pleached bower, Where honeysuckles, ripen'd by the sun, Forbid the sun to enter;-like favourites, Made proud by princes, that advance their pride Against that power that bred it:-there will she hide her, To listen our purpose a: This is thy office, Bear thee well in it, and leave us alone. MARG. I'll make her come, I warrant you, presently. HERO. Now, Ursula, when Beatrice doth come, As we do trace this alley up and down, Our talk must only be of Benedick : When I do name him, let it be thy part To praise him more than ever man did merit : My talk to thee must be, how Benedick Is sick in love with Beatrice: Of this matter Is little Cupid's crafty arrow made, That only wounds by hearsay. Now begin; Enter BEATRICE, behind. For look where Beatrice, like a lapwing, runs Close by the ground, to hear our conference. URS. The pleasantest angling is to see the fish Cut with her golden oars the silver stream, And greedily devour the treacherous bait : So angle we for Beatrice; who even now Is couched in the woodbine coverture: Fear you not my part of the dialogue. HERO. Then go we near her, that her ear lose nothing Of the false sweet bait that we lay for it.— URS. No, truly, Ursula, she is too disdainful; I know, her spirits are as coy and wild As haggards of the rock 14. But are you sure, That Benedick loves Beatrice so entirely? HERO. So says the prince, and my new-trothed lord. URS. And did they bid you tell her of it, madam ? HERO. They did entreat me to acquaint her of it: 8 [Exit. [They advance to the bower. Purpose. So the folio; the quarto, propose. The accent must be placed on the second syllable of purpose. The words have the same meaning-that of conversation-and were indifferently used by old writers. In the third line of this scene we have,— In Spenser,- (C Proposing with the prince and Claudio." "For she in pleasant purpose did abound." 32 [ACT III. MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. But I persuaded them, if they lov'd Benedick, To wish him wrestle with affection, And never to let Beatrice know of it. URS. Why did you so? Doth not the gentleman Deserve as full, as fortunate a bed, As ever Beatrice shall couch upon? HERO. O God of love! I know he doth deserve As much as may be yielded to a man: But Nature never fram'd a woman's heart Of prouder stuff than that of Beatrice : Disdain and scorn ride sparkling in her eyes, Misprising a what they look on; and her wit Values itself so highly, that to her URS. All matter else seems weak: she cannot love, Nor take no shape nor project of affection, She is so self-endeared. Sure, I think so; And therefore, certainly, it were not good She knew his love, lest she make sport at it. HERO. Why, you speak truth: I never yet saw man, How wise, how noble, young, how rarely featur'd, But she would spell him backward: if fair fac'd, She would swear the gentleman should be her sister; If black, why, Nature, drawing of an antic, Made a foul blot: if tall, a lance ill-headed; If low, an agated very vilely cut: If speaking, why, a vane blown with all winds; If silent, why, a block moved with none. So turns she every man the wrong side out; And never gives to truth and virtue that Which simpleness and merit purchaseth. URS. Sure, sure, such carping is not commendable. HERO. No; not to be so odd, and from all fashions, As Beatrice is, cannot be commendable: a But who dare tell her so? If I should speak, She would mocke me into air; O, she would laugh me Out of myself, press me to death with wit. Therefore let Benedick, like cover'd fire, Misprising-undervaluing. b She would swear. This has been turned into she'd swear, to suit the mincing rhythm of the commentators. • Black-as opposed to fair-swarthy. d Agate. In 'Henry IV., Part II.,' Act I., Scene 2, Falstaff says of his page, "I was never manned with an agate till now." Agates were cut into various forms, such as men's heads. See Note on the passage in Henry IV.' • She would mock. Changed also to she 'd mock by modern editors. SCENE I.] 33 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. Consume away in sighs, waste inwardly: It were a better death than die with mocks ; Which is as bad as die with tickling. URS. Yet tell her of it; hear what she will say. HERO. No; rather I will go to Benedick, And counsel him to fight against his passion: And, truly, I'll devise some honest slanders To stain my cousin with: One doth not know How much an ill word may empoison liking. URS. O, do not do your cousin such a wrong. She cannot be so much without true judgment, (Having so swift and excellent a wit As she is priz'd to have,) as to refuse So rare a gentleman as signior Benedick. HERO. He is the only man of Italy, Always excepted my dear Claudio. URS. I pray you, be not angry with me, madam, Speaking my fancy; signior Benedick, For shape, for bearing, argument ª, and valour, Goes foremost in report through Italy. HERO. Indeed, he hath an excellent good name. URS. His excellence did earn it, ere he had it. When are you married, madam? HERO. Why, every day;-to-morrow: Come, go in; I'll show thee some attires; and have thy counsel, Which is the best to furnish me to-morrow. b URS. She's ta'en ", I warrant you; we have caught her, madam. HERO. If it prove so, then loving goes by haps: Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps. [Exeunt HERO and Ursula. BEATRICE advances. BEAT. What fire is in mine ears 15? Can this be true? Stand I condemn'd for pride and scorn so much? Contempt, farewell! and maiden pride, adieu! No glory lives behind the back of such. And, Benedick, love on, I will requite thee; Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand; If thou dost love, my kindness shall incite thee To bind our loves up in a holy band: For others say thou dost deserve; and I Believe it better than reportingly. [Exit. • Argument-conversation. So in 'Henry IV., Part I.:' " It would be argument for a week.” Ta'en. So the folio; the quarto, limed. COMEDIES.-VOL. II. C 34 [ACT III. MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. SCENE II.—A Room in Leonato's House. Enter DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK, and LEONATO. D. PEDRO. I do but stay till your marriage be consummate, and then go I to- ward Arragon. CLAUD. I'll bring you thither, my lord, if you 'll vouchsafe me. D. PEDRO. Nay, that would be as great a soil in the new gloss of your marriage, as to show a child his new coat, and forbid him to wear it. I will only be bold with Benedick for his company; for, from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, he is all mirth; he hath twice or thrice cut Cupid's bowstring, and the little hangman dare not shoot at him: he hath a heart as sound as a bell, and his tongue is the clapper; for what his heart thinks his tongue speaks. BENE. Gallants, I am not as I have been. LEON. So say I; methinks you are sadder. CLAUD. I hope he be in love. D. PEDRO. Hang him, truant; there's no true drop of blood in him, to be truly touched with love: if he be sad, he wants money. BENE. I have the tooth-ach. D. PEDRO. Draw it. BENE. Hang it! CLAUD. You must hang it first, and draw it afterwards. D. PEDRO. What? sigh for the tooth-ach? LEON. Where is but a humour, or a worm? BENE. Well, every one cana master a grief, but he that has it. CLAUD. Yet, say I, he is in love. D. PEDRO. There is no appearance of fancy in him, unless it be a fancy b that he hath to strange disguises; as, to be a Dutchman to-day; a Frenchman to-morrow; [or in the shape of two countries at once, as, a German from the waist downward, all slops; and a Spaniard from the hip upward, no doublet:] Unless he have a fancy to this foolery, as it appears he hath, he is no fool for fancy, as you would have it to appear he is. CLAUD. If he be not in love with some woman, there is no believing old signs : he brushes his hat o' mornings: What should that bode? D. PEDRO. Hath any man seen him at the barber's? CLAUD. No, but the barber's man hath been seen with him; and the old orna- ment of his cheek hath already stuffed tennisballs ª. a • Can. The original copies, cannot. b Fancy is here used in a different sense from the same word which immediately precedes it- although fancy in the sense of love is the same as fancy in the sense of the indulgence of a humour. The fancy which makes a lover, and the fancy which produces a bird-fancier, each ex- press the same subjection of the will to the imagination. • The passage in brackets is not found in the folio, but is supplied from the quarto. d * In one of Nashe's pamphlets, 1591, we have, "they may sell their hair by the pound, to stuff tennis-balls." Several of the old comedies allude to the same employment of human hair. SCENE II.] 35 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. LEON. Indeed, he looks younger than he did, by the loss of a beard. D. PEDRO. Nay, he rubs himself with civet: Can you smell him out by that? CLAUD. That's as much as to say, The sweet youth 's in love. D. PEDRO. The greatest note of it is his melancholy. CLAUD. And when was he wont to wash his face? D. PEDRO. Yea, or to paint himself? for the which, I hear what they say of him. CLAUD. Nay, but his jesting spirit; which is now crept into a lutestring 16, and now governed by stops. D. PEDRO. Indeed, that tells a heavy tale for him: Conclude a he is in love. CLAUD. Nay, but I know who loves him. D. PEDRO. That would I know too; I warrant, one that knows him not. CLAUD. Yes, and his ill conditions; and, in despite of all, dies for him. D. PEDRO. She shall be buried with her face upwards. BENE. Yet is this no charm for the tooth-ach.-Old signior, walk aside with me; I have studied eight or nine wise words to speak to you, which these hobby- horses must not hear. [Exeunt BENEDICK and LEONATO. D. PEDRO. For my life, to break with him about Beatrice. CLAUD. 'T is even so: Hero and Margaret have by this played their parts with Beatrice; and then the two bears will not bite one another when they meet. Enter DON JOHN. D. JOHN. My lord and brother, God save you. D. PEDRO. Good den, brother. D. JOHN. If your leisure served, I would speak with you. D. PEDRO. In private? D. JOHN. If it please you ;-yet count Claudio may hear; for what I would speak of concerns him. D. PEDRO. What's the matter? D. JOHN. Means your lordship to be married to-morrow? D. PEDRO. You know he does. D. JOHN. I know not that, when he knows what I know. CLAUD. If there be any impediment, I pray you discover it. [To CLAUDIO. D. JOHN. You may think I love you not; let that appear hereafter, and aim better at me by that I now will manifest. For my brother, I think, he holds you well; and in dearness of heart hath holp to effect your ensuing marriage: surely, suit ill spent, and labour ill bestowed! D. PEDRO. Why, what's the matter? D. JOHN. I came hither to tell you: and, circumstances shortened, (for she hath been too long a talking of,) the lady is disloyal. CLAUD. Who? Hero? D. JOHN. Even she; Leonato's Hero, your Hero, every man's Hero. CLAUD. Disloyal? D. JOHN. The word is too good to paint out her wickedness; I could say she were worse; think you of a worse title, and I will fit her to it. Wonder not a The quarto has, conclude, conclude. c 2 36 [ACT III. MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. till further warrant: go but with me to-night, you shall see her chamber- window entered; even the night before her wedding-day; if you love her then, to-morrow wed her; but it would better fit your honour to change your mind. CLAUD. May this be so? D. PEDRO. I will not think it. D. JOHN. If you dare not trust that you see, confess not that you know: if you will follow me, I will show you enough; and when you have seen more, and heard more, proceed accordingly. CLAUD. If I see anything to-night why I should not marry her to-morrow, in the congregation, where I should wed, there will I shame her. D. PEDRO. And, as I wooed for thee to obtain her, I will join with thee to dis- grace her. D. JOHN. I will disparage her no farther, till you are my witnesses: bear it coldly but till night, and let the issue show itself. D. PEDRO. O day untowardly turned ! CLAUD. O mischief strangely thwarting! D. JOHN. O plague right well prevented! So will you say when you have seen the sequel. [Exeunt. SCENE III.-A Street. Enter DOGBERRY and VERGES, with the Watch. DOGB. Are you good men and true ? VERG. Yea, or else it were pity but they should suffer salvation, body and soul. DOGB. Nay, that were a punishment too good for them, if they should have any allegiance in them, being chosen for the prince's watch. VERG. Well, give them their charge, neighbour Dogberry. DOGB. First, who think you the most desartless man to be constable? 1 WATCH. Hugh Oatcake, sir, or George Seacoal; for they can write and read. DOGB. Come hither, neighbour Seacoal: God hath blessed you with a good name: to be a well-favoured man is the gift of fortune; but to write and read comes by nature. 2 WATCH. Both which, master constable, Well, for your favour, sir, and for your writing and DOGB. You have; I knew it would be your answer. why give God thanks, and make no boast of it; reading, let that appear when there is no need of such vanity. You are thought here to be the most senseless and fit man for the constable of the watch; therefore bear you the lantern 17. This is your charge: You shall comprehend all vagrom men; you are to bid any man stand, in the prince's name. 2 WATCH. How if ab will not stand? Night. So the folio; in the quarto, midnight. b How if a. We have retained the quaint vulgarism of the original, instead of the modern re- SCENE III.] 37 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. DOGB. Why then, take no note of him, but let him go; and presently call the rest of the watch together, and thank God you are rid of a knave. VERG. If he will not stand when he is bidden, he is none of the prince's sub- jects. DOGB. True, and they are to meddle with none but the prince's subjects:-You shall also make no noise in the streets; for, for the watch to babble and talk, is most tolerable and not to be endured. 2 WATCH. We will rather sleep than talk; we know what belongs to a watch. DOGB. Why, you speak like an ancient and most quiet watchman; for I cannot see how sleeping should offend: only, have a care that your bills be not stolen ¹7 :—Well, you are to call at all the ale-houses, and bid them that are drunk get them to bed. 17 2 WATCH. How if they will not? DOGB. Why then, let them alone till they are sober; if they make you not then the better answer, you may say they are not the men you took them for. 2 WATCH. Well, sir. DOGB. If you meet a thief, you may suspect him, by virtue of your office, to be no true man; and, for such kind of men, the less you meddle or make with them, why, the more is for your honesty. 2 WATCH. If we know him to be a thief, shall we not lay hands on him? DOGB. Truly, by your office, you may; but I think they that touch pitch will be defiled: the most peaceable way for you, if you do take a thief, is to let him show himself what he is, and steal out of your company. VERG. You have been always called a merciful man, partner. DOGB. Truly, I would not hang a dog by my will; much more a man who hath any honesty in him. VERG. If you hear a child cry in the night, you must call to the nurse, and bid her still it. 2 WATCH. How if the nurse be asleep, and will not hear us? DOGB. Why, then depart in peace, and let the child wake her with crying: for the ewe that will not hear her lamb when it baes will never answer a calf when he bleats. VERG. "T is very true. DOGB. This is the end of the charge. You, constable, are to present the prince's own person; if you meet the prince in the night, you may stay him. VERG. Nay, by 'r lady, that, I think, a cannot. DOGB. Five shillings to one on 't, with any man that knows the statues ª, he may stay him marry, not without the prince be willing: for, indeed, the watch ought to offend no man; and it is an offence to stay a man against his will. VERG. By 'r lady, I think it be so. DOGB. Ha, ha, ha! Well, masters, good night: an there be any matter of finement, how if he. In many other passages of these inimitable scenes the same form is restored by us. 8 Statues. So the folio. The quarto has statutes; and those who eschew jokes follow the quarto. 38 [ACT III. MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. weight chances, call up me: keep your fellows' counsels and your own, and good night.-Come, neighbour. 2 WATCH. Well, masters, we hear our charge: let us go sit here upon the church-bench till two, and then all to bed. DOGB. One word more, honest neighbours: I pray you, watch about signior Leonato's door; for the wedding being there to-morrow, there is a great coil to-night: Adieu, be vigilant, I beseech you. [Exeunt DOGBERRY and VERGES. Enter BORACHIO and CONRADE. BORA What! Conrade,- WATCH. Peace, stir not. BORA. Conrade, I say! [Aside. CON. Here, man, I am at thy elbow. BORA. Mass, and my elbow itched; I thought there would a scab follow. CON. I will owe thee an answer for that; and now forward with thy tale. BORA. Stand thee close then under this pent-house, for it drizzles rain; and I will, like a true drunkard, utter all to thee. WATCH. [aside.] Some treason, masters; yet stand close. BORA. Therefore know, I have earned of don John a thousand ducats. CON. Is it possible that any villainy should be so dear? BORA. Thou shouldst rather ask, if it were possible any villainy should be so rich; for when rich villains have need of poor ones, poor ones may make what price they will. CON. I wonder at it. BORA. That shows thou art unconfirmed:Thou knowest that the fashion of a doublet, or a hat, or a cloak, is nothing to a man. CON. Yes, it is apparel. BORA. I mean, the fashion. CON. Yes, the fashion is the fashion. BORA. Tush! I may as well say, the fool 's the fool. But seest thou not what a deformed thief this fashion is? WATCH. I know that Deformed; a has been a vile thief this seven year; a goes up and down like a gentleman: I remember his name. BORA. Didst thou not hear somebody? CON. No; 't was the vane on the house. BORA. Seest thou not, I say, what a deformed thief this fashion is? how giddily he turns about all the hot bloods, between fourteen and five-and-thirty? sometime, fashioning them like Pharaoh's soldiers in the reechy painting; sometime, like god Bel's priests in the old church-window; sometime, like b Vigilant. Both the quarto and folio have vigitant; but we doubt whether Shakspere meant Dogberry to blunder after this fashion. He does not coin words, like Mrs. Malaprop, in the place of current and familiar ones. Ն Reechy-begrimed-smoky. SCENE III.] 39 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. the shaven Hercules in the smirched a worm-eaten tapestry, where his cod- piece seems as massy as his club? CON. All this I see; and see that the fashion wears out more apparel than the man: But art not thou thyself giddy with the fashion too, that thou hast shifted out of thy tale into telling me of the fashion? BORA. Not so neither: but know, that I have to-night wooed Margaret, the lady Hero's gentlewoman, by the name of Hero; she leans me out at her mistress' chamber-window, bids me a thousand times good night,—I tell this tale vilely:-I should first tell thee how the prince, Claudio, and my master, planted, and placed, and possessed by my master don John, saw afar off in the orchard this amiable encounter. CON. And thought thy Margaret was Hero? BORA. Two of them did, the prince and Claudio; but the devil my master knew she was Margaret; and partly by his oaths, which first possessed them, partly by the dark night, which did deceive them, but chiefly by my villainy, which did confirm any slander that don John had made, away went Claudio enraged; swore he would meet her as he was appointed, next morning at the temple, and there, before the whole congregation, shame her with what he saw o'er-night, and send her home again without a husband. 1 WATCH. We charge you in the prince's name, stand. 2 WATCH. Call up the right master constable: we have here recovered the most dangerous piece of lechery that ever was known in the commonwealth. 1 WATCH. And one Deformed is one of them; I know him, a wears a lock. CON. Masters, masters. 2 WATCH. You'll be made bring Deformed forth, I warrant you. CON. Masters,— 1 WATCH. Never speak; we charge you, let us obey you to go with us. BORA. We are like to prove a goodly commodity, being taken up of these men's bills c. CON. A commodity in question, I warrant you. Come, we 'll obey you. [Exeunt. SCENE IV.-A Room in Leonato's House. Enter HERO, Margaret, and Ursula. HERO. Good Ursula, wake my cousin Beatrice, and desire her to rise. URS. I will, lady. HERO. And bid her come hither. URS. Well. MARG. Troth, I think your other rabato 18 were better. HERO. No, pray thee, good Meg, I'll wear this. a Smirched-smutched-smudged. b So the folio. In the quarto. "And thought they, Margaret was Hero?" C [Exit URSULA. Shakspere has here repeated the conceit which we find in 'The Second Part of Henry VI.:'— My lord, when shall we go to Cheapside, and take up commodities upon our bills?" 40 [ACT III. MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. MARG. By my troth, it's not so good; and I warrant your cousin will say so. HERO. My cousin 's a fool, and thou art another; I'll wear none but this. MARG. I like the new tire within excellently, if the hair were a thought browner and your gown 's a most rare fashion, i' faith. : I saw the duchess of Milan's gown, that they praise so. HERO. O, that exceeds, they say. MARG. By my troth it's but a night-gown in respect of yours: Cloth of gold, and cuts, and laced with silver; set with pearls down sleeves, side-sleeves, and skirts, round underborne with a blueish tinsel: but for a fine, quaint, graceful, and excellent fashion, yours is worth ten on 't. HERO. God give me joy to wear it, for my heart is exceeding heavy! MARG. 'T will be heavier soon, by the weight of a man. HERO. Fie upon thee! art not ashamed? MARG. Of what, lady? of speaking honourably? Is not marriage honourable in a beggar? Is not your lord honourable without marriage? I think, you would have me say, saving your reverence,- a husband: an bad thinking do not wrest true speaking, I'll offend nobody: Is there any harm in, "the heavier for a husband?" None, I think, an it be the right husband, and the right wife; otherwise 't is light, and not heavy: Ask my lady Beatrice else,―here she comes. Enter BEATRICE. HERO. Good morrow, coz. BEAT. Good morrow, sweet Hero. HERO. Why, how now! do you speak in the sick tune? BEAT. I am out of all other tune, methinks. MARG. Clap us into-"Light o' love; "19 that goes without a burthen; do you sing it, and I 'll dance it. BEAT. Yed light o' love, with your heels;—then if your husband have stables enough, you 'll look he shall lack no barns. MARG. O illegitimate construction! I scorn that with my heels. BEAT. "T is almost five o'clock, cousin; 't is time you were ready. By my troth I am exceeding ill: hey ho! MARG. For a hawk, a horse, or a husband? a The false hair. b This is usually pointed, "set with pearls, down sleeves." The pearls are to be set down the sleeves. "L Side-sleeves-long sleeves-or full sleeves-from the Anglo-Saxon, sid-ample-long. The deep and broad sleeves" of the time of Henry IV. are thus ridiculed by Hoccleve:— "Now hath this land little neede of broomes To sweepe away the filth out of the streete, Sen side-sleeves of pennilesse groomes Will it up licke, be it drie or weete." a Ye. All the old copies have ye. The modern reading is, “Yea, ‘Light o' love,' with your heels." The jest of Beatrice, whatever it be, does not consist in the mere repetition of the name of the tune. SCENE V. 41 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. BEAT. For the letter that begins them all, Ha. MARG. Well, an you be not turned Turk, there's no more sailing by the star. BEAT. What means the fool, trowb? MARG. Nothing I; but God send every one their heart's desire ! HERO. These gloves the count sent me, they are an excellent perfume. BEAT. I am stuffed, cousin, I cannot smell. MARG. A maid, and stuffed! there 's goodly catching of cold. BEAT. O, God help me! God help me! how long have you professed appre- hension ? MARG. Ever since you left it: doth not my wit become me rarely? BEAT. It is not seen enough, you should wear it in your cap.-By my troth, I am sick. 20 MARG. Get you some of this distilled Carduus Benedictus 2º, and lay it to your heart; it is the only thing for a qualm. HERO. There thou prick'st her with a thistle. BEAT. Benedictus! why Benedictus? you have some moral in this Benedictus. MARG. Moral! no, by my troth, I have no moral meaning; I meant, plain holy- thistle. You may think, perchance, that I think you are in love: nay, by 'r lady, I am not such a fool to think what I list; nor I list not to think what I can; nor, indeed, I cannot think, if I would think my heart out of thinking, that you are in love, or that you will be in love, or that you can be in love: yet Benedick was such another, and now is he become a man: he swore he would never marry; and yet now, in despite of his heart, he eats his meat without grudging: and how you may be converted, I know not; but, me- thinks, you look with your eyes as other women do. BEAT. What pace is this that thy tongue keeps? MARG. Not a false gallop. Re-enter URSULA. URS. Madam, withdraw; the prince, the count, signior Benedick, don John, and all the gallants of the town, are come to fetch you to church. HERO. Help to dress me, good coz, good Meg, good Ursula. [Exeunt. • An epigram by Heywood, 1566, explains this jest; and gives us the old pronunciation of ache, to which John Kemble adhered in despite of "the groundlings:"- A friend has pointed as a dissyllable: "H is amongst worse letters in the cross-row; For if thou find him either in thine elbow, In thine arm, or leg, in any degree; In thine head, or teeth, or toe, or knee; Into what place soever H may pike him, Wherever thou find ache thou shalt not like him.” out that even in the time of Sir Richard Blackmore, aches was pronounced "Cripples, with aches and with age opprest, Crawl on their crutches to the grave for rest.” › Trow-I trow. So in 'The Merry Wives of Windsor:'-" Who's there, trow ?" 42 [ACT III. MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. SCENE V.-Another Room in Leonato's House. Enter LEONATO, with DOGBERRY and VERGES. LEON. What would you with me, honest neighbour? DOGB. Marry, sir, I would have some confidence with you that decerns you nearly. LEON. Brief, I pray you; for, you see, it is a busy time with me. DOGB. Marry, this it is, sir. VERG. Yes, in truth it is, sir. LEON. What is it, my good friends? DOGB. Goodman Verges, sir, speaks a little off the matter: an old man, sir, and his wits are not so blunt, as, God help, I would desire they were; but, in faith, honest, as the skin between his brows. VERG. Yes, I thank God, I am as honest as any man living, that is an old man, and no honester than I. DOGB. Comparisons are odorous: palabras, neighbour Verges. LEON. Neighbours, you are tedious. DOGB. It pleases your worship to say so, but we are the poor duke's officers; but, truly, for mine own part, if I were as tedious as a king I could find in my heart to bestow it all of your worship. LEON. All thy tediousness on me! ha! DOGB. Yea, and 't were a thousand times a more than 't is : for I hear as good exclamation on your worship, as of any man in the city; and though I be but a poor man I am glad to hear it. VERG. And so am I. LEON. I would fain know what you have to say. VERG. Marry, sir, our watch to-night, excepting your worship's presence, have ta'en a couple of as arrant knaves as any in Messina. DOGB. A good old man, sir; he will be talking; as they say, When the age is in, the wit is out; God help us! it is a world to see!-Well said, i' faith, neighbour Verges :—well, God 's a good man; an two men ride of a horse, one must ride behind :—An honest soul, i' faith, sir; by my troth he is, as ever broke bread: but God is to be worshipped: All men are not alike; alas, good neighbour ! LEON. Indeed, neighbour, he comes too short of you. DOGB. Gifts, that God gives. LEON. I must leave you. DOGB. One word, sir: our watch, sir, have, indeed, comprehended two aspicious. persons, and we would have them this morning examined before your worship. LEON. Take their examination yourself, and bring it me; I am now in great haste, as may appear unto you”. a Times, in the folio. The quarto has pound. b So the folio. In the quarto, tt as it may appear unto you." SCENE V.] 43 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. DOGB. It shall be suffigance. LEON. Drink some wine ere you go: fare you well. Enter a Messenger. MESS. My lord, they stay for you to give your daughter to her husband. LEON. I will wait upon them; I am ready. [Exeunt LEONATO and Messenger. DOGB. Go, good partner, go, get you to Francis Seacoal; bid him bring his pen and inkhorn to the gaol: we are now to examination ª these men. VERG. And we must do it wisely. DOGB. We will spare for no wit, I warrant you; here 's that [touching his fore- head] shall drive some of them to a non com: only get the learned writer to set down our excommunication, and meet me at the gaol. [Exeunt. & Examination, in the quarto. In the folio, examine. [Ancient Watchmen.] [Scene I. Cathedral of Messina.] ACT IV. SCENE I.-The Inside of a Church. Enter DON PEDRO, DON JOHN, LEONATO, Friar, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK, HERO, and BEATRICE, &c. LEON. Come, friar Francis, be brief; only to the plain form of marriage, and you shall recount their particular duties afterwards. FRIAR. You come hither, my lord, to marry this lady? CLAUD. No. LEON. To be married to her: friar, you come to marry her ª. "We follow the punctuation of the original. The meaning is destroyed by the modern mode of pointing the passage,- "To be married to her, friar; you come to marry her." SCENE I.] 45 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. FRIAR. Lady, you come hither to be married to this count? HERO. I do. FRIAR. If either of you know any inward impediment why you should not be conjoined, I charge you, on your souls, to utter it. CLAUD. Know you any, Hero? HERO. None, my lord. FRIAR. Know you any, count? LEON. I dare make his answer, none. CLAUD. O, what men dare do! what men may do! what men daily do! [not knowing what they do a!] BENE. How now! Interjections? Why, then, some be of laughing, as, ha! ha! he! CLAUD. Stand thee by, friar:-Father, by your leave ; Will you with free and unconstrained soul Give me this maid, your daughter? LEON. As freely, son, as God did give her me. CLAUD. And what have I to give you back, whose worth May counterpoise this rich and precious gift? D. PEDRO. Nothing, unless you render her again. CLAUD. Sweet prince, you learn me noble thankfulness. There, Leonato, take her back again; Give not this rotten orange to your friend; She's but the sign and semblance of her honour: Behold, how like a maid she blushes here: O, what authority and show of truth Can cunning sin cover itself withal ! Comes not that blood, as modest evidence, To witness simple virtue? Would you not swear, All you that see her, that she were a maid, By these exterior shows? But she is none: She knows the heat of a luxurious bed: Her blush is guiltiness, not modesty. LEON. What do you mean, my lord? CLAUD. Not to be married, Not to knit my soul to an approved wanton. LEON. Dear my lord, if you, in your own proof Have vanquish'd the resistance of her youth, And made defeat of her virginity,- CLAUD. I know what you would say; If I have known her, You'll say, she did embrace me as a husband, And so extenuate the 'forehand sin: No, Leonato, I never tempted her with word too large; a The words in brackets are not in the folio, but in the quarto. b Shakspere had not forgotten his Accidence. 46 [ACT IV. MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. But, as a brother to his sister, show'd Bashful sincerity, and comely love. HERO. And seem'd I ever otherwise to you? CLAUD. Out on the seemingª ! I will write against it, You seem to me as Dian in her orb; As chaste as is the bud ere it be blown ; But you are more intemperate in your blood Than Venus, or those pamper'd animals That rage in savage sensuality. HERO. Is my lord well, that he doth speak so wide? LEON. Sweet prince, why speak not you b? D. PEDRO. What should I speak? I stand dishonour'd, that have gone about To link my dear friend to a common stale. LEON. Are these things spoken? or do I but dream? D. JOHN. Sir, they are spoken, and these things are true. BENE. This looks not like a nuptial. HERO. CLAUD. Leonato, stand I here? True? O God! Is this the prince? Is this the prince's brother? Is this face Hero's? Are our eyes our own? LEON. All this is so: But what of this, my lord? CLAUD. Let me but move one question to your daughter; And, by that fatherly and kindly power That you have in her, bid her answer truly. LEON. I charge thee do, as thou art my child. HERO. O God defend me! how am I beset! What kind of catechising call you this? CLAUD. To make you answer truly to your name. HERO. Is it not Hero? Who can blot that name With any just reproach? CLAUD. a Marry, that can Hero; Hero itself can blot out Hero's virtue. What man was he talk'd with you yesternight Out at your window, betwixt twelve and one? " In the originals, both the quarto and folio, we have "Out on thee seeming." Pope changed this phrase into "Out on thy seeming." We believe that the poet used "Out on the seeming" the specious resemblance-" I will write against it”—that is, against this false representation, along with this deceiving portrait, "You seem to me as Dian in her orb," &c. The commentators separate "I will write against it" from what follows, as if Claudio were about to compose a treatise upon the subject of woman's deceitfulness. b Tieck proposes to give this line to Claudio, who thus calls upon the prince to confirm his declaration. с • So the folio; in the quarto, do so. The pause which is required after the do, by the omission of so, gives force to the command. SCENE I.] 47 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. Now, if you are a maid, answer to this. HERO. I talk'd with no man at that hour, my lord. D. PEDRO. Why, then are you no maiden.-Leonato, I am sorry you must hear: Upon mine honour, Myself, my brother, and this grieved count, Did see her, hear her, at that hour last night, Talk with a ruffian at her chamber-window; Who hath, indeed, most like a liberal a villain, Confess'd the vile encounters they have had A thousand times in secret. D. JOHN. Fie, fie! they are Not to be nam'd, my lord, not to be spoken of; There is not chastity enough in language, Without offence, to utter them: Thus, pretty lady, I am sorry for thy much misgovernment. CLAUD. O Hero! what a Hero hadst thou been, If half thy outward graces had been plac'd About thy thoughts, and counsels of thy heart! But, fare thee well, most foul, most fair! farewell, Thou pure impiety, and impious purity! For thee I'll lock up all the gates of love, And on my eyelids shall conjecture hang, To turn all beauty into thoughts of harm, And never shall it more be gracious. LEON. Hath no man's dagger here a point for me? BEAT. Why, how now, cousin? wherefore sink you down? D. JOHN. Come, let us go: these things, come thus to light, Smother her spirits up. BENE. How doth the lady? BEAT. [HERO SWOONS. [Exeunt DON PEDRO, DON JOHN, and CLAUDIO. Dead, I think;-help, uncle ;- Hero! why, Hero Uncle !-Signior Benedick!-friar! LEON. O fate, take not away thy heavy hand! Death is the fairest cover for her shame That may be wish'd for. BEAT. FRIAR. Have comfort, lady. LEON. Dost thou look up? How now, cousin Hero? FRIAR. Yea; Wherefore should she not? LEON. Wherefore? Why, doth not every earthly thing Cry shame upon her? Could she here deny The story that is printed in her blood ? Do not live, Hero; do not ope thine eyes : For did I think thou wouldst not quickly die, • Liberal—licentiously free. So in Othello:'-" Is he not a most profane and liberal coun- sellor ?" 48 [ACT IV. MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. Thought I thy spirits were stronger than thy shames, Myself would, on the rearward of reproaches, Strike at thy life. Griev'd I, I had but one? Chid I for that at frugal nature's frame a? O, one too much by thee! Why had I one? Why ever wast thou lovely in my eyes? Why had I not, with charitable hand, Took up a beggar's issue at my gates; Who, smirched thus, and mir'd with infamy, I might have said, "No part of it is mine, This shame derives itself from unknown loins ?" But mine, and mine I lov'd, and mine I prais'd, And mine that I was proud on; mine so much, That I myself was to myself not mine, Valuing of her; why, she-O, she is fallen Into a pit of ink! that the wide sea Hath drops too few to wash her clean again; And salt too little, which may season give To her foul tainted flesh ! BENE. Sir, sir, be patient : For my part I am so attir'd in wonder, I know not what to say. BEAT. O, on my soul, my cousin is belied! BENE. Lady, were you her bedfellow last night? BEAT. No, truly not; although until last night I have this twelvemonth been her bedfellow. LEON. Confirm'd, confirm'd! O, that is stronger made, Which was before barr'd up with ribs of iron! Would the two princes lie? and Claudio lie? Who lov'd her so, that, speaking of her foulness, Wash'd it with tears? Hence from her; let her die. FRIAR. Hear me a little; For I have only been silent so long, And given way unto this course of fortune, By noting of the lady; I have mark'd с A thousand blushing apparitions start b Into her face; a thousand innocent shames In angel whiteness bear away those blushes; And in her eye there hath appear'd a fire, To burn the errors that these princes hold Against her maiden truth :-Call me a fool; Trust not my reading, nor my observations, Which with experimental seal doth warrant • Frame-ordinance-arrangement. b The original copies have "to start." Bear, in the folio. The quarto, beat. SCENE I.] 49 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. The tenour of my book; trust not my age, My reverence, calling, nor divinity, If this sweet lady lie not guiltless here Under some biting error. LEON. Friar, it cannot be : Thou seest, that all the grace that she hath left Is, that she will not add to her damnation A sin of perjury; she not denies it : Why seek'st thou then to cover with excuse That which appears in proper nakedness? FRIAR. Lady, what man is he you are accus'd of? HERO. They know that do accuse me; I know none: If I know more of any man alive Than that which maiden modesty doth warrant, Let all my sins lack mercy!-O my father, Prove you that any man with me convers'd At hours unmeet, or that I yesternight Maintain'd the change of words with any creature, Refuse me, hate me, torture me to death. FRIAR. There is some strange misprision in the princes. BENE. Two of them have the very bent of honour; And if their wisdoms be misled in this, The practice of it lives in John the bastard, Whose spirits toil in frame of villainies. LEON. I know not: If they speak but truth of her, These hands shall tear her; if they wrong her honour, The proudest of them shall well hear of it. Time hath not yet so dried this blood of mine, Nor age so eat up my invention, Nor fortune made such havoc of my means, Nor my bad life reft me so much of friends, But they shall find, awak'd in such a kind, Both strength of limb, and policy of mind, Ability in means, and choice of friends, To quit me of them throughly. FRIAR. Pause a while, And let my counsel sway you in this case. Your daughter here the princes left for dead; Let her a while be secretly kept in, And publish it that she is dead indeed : Maintain a mourning ostentation; And on your family's old monument Hang mournful epitaphs, and do all rites. That appertain unto a burial. LEON. What shall become of this? What will this do? COMEDIES.-VOL. II. D 50 [ACT IV. MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. FRIAR. Marry, this, well carried, shall on her behalf Change slander to remorse; that is some good: But not for that dream I on this strange course, But on this travail look for greater birth. She dying, as it must be so maintain'd, Upon the instant that she was accus'd, Shall be lamented, pitied, and excus'd, Of every hearer: For it so falls out, That what we have we prize not to the worth Whiles we enjoy it; but being lack'd and lost, Why then we rack a the value, then we find The virtue that possession would not show us Whiles it was ours: So will it fare with Claudio: When he shall hear she died upon his words, The idea of her life shall sweetly creep Into his study of imagination; And every lovely organ of her life Shall come apparell'd in more precious habit, More moving-delicate, and full of life, Into the eye and prospect of his soul, Than when she liv'd indeed :-then shall he mourn, (If ever love had interest in his liver,) And wish he had not so accused her; No, though he thought his accusation true. Let this be so, and doubt not but success b Will fashion the event in better shape Than I can lay it down in likelihood. But if all aim but this be levell'd false, The supposition of the lady's death Will quench the wonder of her infamy: And, if it sort not well, you may conceal her (As best befits her wounded reputation) In some reclusive and religious life, Out of all eyes, tongues, minds, and injuries. BENE. Signior Leonato, let the friar advise you : And though, you know, my inwardness and love Is very much unto the prince and Claudio, Yet, by mine honour, I will deal in this As secretly and justly as your soul Should with your body. LEON. Being that I flow in grief, The smallest twine may lead me. "Rack-strain-stretch-exaggerate. Hence rack-rent. b Success. Mr. Hunter explains that the word is here used in the sense of what is to come after. SCENE I.] 51 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. FRIAR. 'T is well consented; presently away; For to strange sores strangely they strain the cure.— Come, lady, die to live: this wedding-day, Perhaps, is but prolong'd; have patience, and endure. [Exeunt Friar, HERO, and LEONATO. BENE. Lady Beatrice, have you wept all this while? BEAT. Yea, and I will weep a while longer. BENE. I will not desire that. BEAT. You have no reason, I do it freely. BENE. Surely, I do believe your fair cousin is wronged. BEAT. Ah, how much might the man deserve of me that would right her! BENE. Is there any way to show such friendship? BEAT. A very even way, but no such friend. BENE. May a man do it? BEAT. It is a man's office, but not yours. BENE. I do love nothing in the world so well as you: Is not that strange? BEAT. As strange as the thing I know not: It were as possible for me to say I loved nothing so well as you: but believe me not; and yet I lie not; I con- fess nothing, nor I deny nothing:-I am sorry for my cousin. BENE. By my sword, Beatrice, thou lovest me. BEAT. Do not swear by it, and eat it. BENE. I will swear by it that you love me; and I will make him eat it that says I love not you. BEAT. Will you not eat your word? BENE. With no sauce that can be devised to it: I protest I love thee. BEAT. Why, then God forgive me! BENE. What offence, sweet Beatrice? BEAT. You have stayed me in a happy hour; I was about to protest I loved you. BENE. And do it with all thy heart. BEAT. I love you with so much of my heart, that none is left to protest. BENE. Come, bid me do anything for thee. BEAT. Kill Claudio. BENE. Ha! not for the wide world. BEAT. You kill me to deny : Farewell. BENE. Tarry, sweet Beatrice. BEAT. I am gone, though I am here:-There is no love in you :-Nay, I pray you, let me go. BENE. Beatrice,- BEAT. In faith, I will go. BENE. We'll be friends first. BEAT. You dare easier be friends with me than fight with mine enemy. BENE. Is Claudio thine enemy? BEAT. Is he not approved in the height a villain, that hath slandered, scorned, dishonoured my kinswoman ?-O, that I were a man!-What! bear her in D 2 52 [ACT IV. MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. hand until they come to take hands; and then with public accusation, un- covered slander, unmitigated rancour,-O God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the market-place. BENE. Hear me, Beatrice ;- BEAT. Talk with a man out at a window ?—a proper saying. BENE. Nay but, Beatrice ;- BEAT. Sweet Hero!-she is wronged, she is slandered, she is undone. BENE. Beat- BEAT. Princes, and counties! Surely, a princely testimony, a goodly count- confect; a sweet gallant, surely! O that I were a man for his sake! or that I had any friend would be a man for my sake! But manhood is melted into courtesies, valour into compliment, and men are only turned into tongue, and trim ones too: he is now as valiant as Hercules that only tells a lie, and swears it:-I cannot be a man with wishing, therefore I will die a woman with grieving. BENE. Tarry, good Beatrice: By this hand, I love thee. BEAT. Use it for my love some other way than swearing by it. BENE. Think you in your soul the count Claudio hath wronged Hero? BEAT. Yea, as sure as I have a thought, or a soul. BENE. Enough, I am engaged, I will challenge him; I will kiss your hand, and so leave you: By this hand, Claudio shall render me a dear account: As you hear of me, so think of me. Go, comfort your cousin: I must say she is dead; and so, farewell. [Exeunt. SCENE II.—A Prison. Enter DOGBERRY, VERGES, and Sexton, in gowns; and the Watch, with CONRADE and BORACHIO. DOGB. Is our whole dissembly appeared? VERG. O, a stool and a cushion for the sexton! SEXTON. Which be the malefactors? DOGB. Marry, that am I and my partner. VERG. Nay, that 's certain; we have the exhibition to examine. SEXTON. But which are the offenders that are to be examined? let them come before master constable. DOGB. Yea, marry, let them come before me.-What is your name, friend? BORA. Borachio. DOGB. Pray, write down, Borachio.- Yours, sirrah? CON. I am a gentleman, sir, and my name is Conrade. DOGB. Write down, master gentleman Conrade.-Masters, do you serve God? [CON. BORA. Yea, sir, we hope. DOGB. Write down that they hope they serve God:-and write God first; for God defend but God should go before such villains a!—] Masters, it is proved • The passage in brackets is omitted in the folio, but is given from the quarto. SCENE II.] 53 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. already that you are little better than false knaves; and it will go near to be thought so shortly. How answer you for yourselves? CON. Marry, sir, we say we are none. DOGB. A marvellous witty fellow, I assure you; but I will go about with him.— Come you hither, sirrah; a word in your ear, sir; I say to you, it is thought you are false knaves. BORA. Sir, I say to you, we are none. DOGB. Well, stand aside.-'Fore God, they are both in a tale: Have you writ down, that they are none? SEXTON. Master constable, you go not the way to examine; you must call forth the watch that are their accusers. DOGB. Yea, marry, that's the eftest a way :-Let the watch come forth :—Mas- ters, I charge you, in the prince's name, accuse these men. 1 WATCH. This man said, sir, that don John, the prince's brother, was a villain. DOGB. Write down, prince John a villain:-Why this is flat perjury, to call a prince's brother villain. BORA. Master constable, DOGB. Pray thee, fellow, peace; I do not like thy look, I promise thee. SEXTON. What heard you him say else? 2 WATCH. Marry, that he had received a thousand ducats of don John, for ac- cusing the lady Hero wrongfully. DOGB. Flat burglary, as ever was committed. VERG. Yea, by the mass, that it is. SEXTON. What else, fellow? 1 WATCH. And that count Claudio did mean, upon his words, to disgrace Hero before the whole assembly, and not marry her. DOGB. O villain! thou wilt be condemned into everlasting redemption for this. SEXTON. What else? 2 WATCH. This is all. SEXTON. And this is more, masters, than you can deny. Prince John is this morning secretly stolen away; Hero was in this manner accused, in this very manner refused, and upon the grief of this suddenly died.-Master constable, let these men be bound, and brought to Leonato; I will go before, and show him their examination. DOGB. Come, let them be opinioned. VERG. Let them be in the hands- CON. Off, coxcomb b ! [Exit. DOGB. God's my life! where's the sexton? let him write down, the prince's officer, coxcomb. Come, bind them : Thou naughty varlet! CON. Away! you are an ass, you are an ass. DOGB. Dost thou not suspect my place? Dost thou not suspect my years ?—O that he were here to write me down, an ass! but, masters, remember, that Eftest-quickest. The original makes Verges say, "Let them be in the hands of Coxcomb." Steevens reads adopting Theobald's division of the speech, "Let them be in hand.” 54 [ACT IV. MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. I am an ass; though it be not written down, yet forget not that I am an ass-No, thou villain, thou art full of piety, as shall be proved upon thee by good witness. I am a wise fellow; and, which is more, an officer; and, which is more, a householder; and, which is more, as pretty a piece of flesh as any is in Messina; and one that knows the law, go to; and a rich fellow enough, go to; and a fellow that hath had losses; and one that hath two gowns and everything handsome about him :-Bring him away. O, that I had been writ down, an ass! [Exeunt. [Scene II. A Prison.] IN VOILETA ME MIL D J. JACKS ON [Exterior of the Cathedral of Messina.] ACT V. SCENE I.-Before Leonato's House. Enter LEONATO and ANTONIO. ANT. If you go on thus, you will kill yourself; And 't is not wisdom thus to second grief Against yourself. LEON. I pray thee, cease thy counsel, Which falls into mine ears as profitless As water in a sieve: give not me counsel; Nor let no comforter delight mine ear, But such a one whose wrongs do suit with mine. Bring me a father, that so lov'd his child, Whose joy of her is overwhelm'd like mine, And bid him speak of patience; Measure his woe the length and breadth of mine, And let it answer every strain for strain; MT 56 [ACT V. MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. As thus for thus, and such a grief for such, In every lineament, branch, shape, and form: If such a one will smile, and stroke his beard; And, sorrow wag" cry; hem, when he should groanª; Patch grief with proverbs; make misfortune drunk With candle-wasters; bring him yet to me, And I of him will gather patience. But there is no such man: For, brother, men Can counsel, and speak comfort to that grief Which they themselves not feel; but tasting it Their counsel turns to passion, which before Would give preceptial medicine to rage, Fetter strong madness in a silken thread, Charm ach with air, and agony with words: No, no; 't is all men's office to speak patience To those that wring under the load of sorrow; But no man's virtue, nor sufficiency, To be so moral, when he shall endure The like himself: therefore give me no counsel: My griefs cry louder than advertisement. ANT. Therein do men from children nothing differ. LEON. I pray thee, peace; I will be flesh and blood; For there was never yet philosopher That could endure the tooth-ach patiently; However they have writ the style of gods, C And made a push at chance and sufferance. ANT. Yet bend not all the harm upon yourself; Make those that do offend you suffer too. LEON. There thou speak'st reason: nay, I will do so : My soul doth tell me Hero is belied; And that shall Claudio know, so shall the prince, And all of them, that thus dishonour her. * This is a perplexing passage. In both the originals the line stands thus:- "And sorrow, wagge, cry hem, when he should grone." The editors have proposed all sorts of emendations, as-And hollow, wag-And sorrow wage— And sorrow waive-And sorrow gag-And sorrowing cry-And sorry wag-And sorrow waggery -In sorrow wag. The emendation of Dr. Johnson is the ordinary reading:- Cry, sorrow, wag! and hem, when he should groan." We prefer the slight change in the punctuation which gives the same meaning. b Candle-wasters. Ben Jonson calls a bookworm a candle-waster; and we think with Whalley that this is the meaning here. To make misfortune drunk with candle-wasters is to attempt to stupify it with learned discourses on patience, that the preachers did not practise:- "For there was never yet philosopher That could endure the tooth-ach patiently, However they have writ the style of gods.' • Push is explained to be a thrust-a defiance. Pope changes the word to pish. Possibly push may be a 'misprint for pish; or the words might have been synonymous. SCENE I.] 57 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. Enter DON PEDRO and CLAUDIO. ANT. Here comes the prince, and Claudio, hastily. D. PEDRO. Good den, good den. CLAUD. LEON. Hear you, my lords,— D. PEDRO. Good day to both of you. We have some haste, Leonato. LEON. Some haste, my lord!—well, fare you well, my lord: Are you so hasty now?—well, all is one. D. PEDRO. Nay, do not quarrel with us, good old man. ANT. If he could right himself with quarrelling, Some of us would lie low. CLAUD. Who wrongs him? LEON. Marry, thou dost wrong me; thou dissembler, thou :- Nay, never lay thy hand upon thy sword; I fear thee not. CLAUD. Marry, beshrew my hand, If it should give your age such cause of fear: In faith, my hand meant nothing to my sword. LEON. Tush, tush, man, never fleer and jest at me: I speak not like a dotard, nor a fool; As, under privilege of age, to brag What I have done being young, or what would do Were I not old: Know, Claudio, to thy head, Thou hast so wrong'd my innocent child and me, That I am forc'd to lay my reverence by; And, with gray hairs, and bruise of many days, Do challenge thee to trial of a man. I say, thou hast belied mine innocent child; Thy slander hath gone through and through her heart, And she lies buried with her ancestors: O! in a tomb where never scandal slept, Save this of hers, fram'd by thy villainy. CLAUD. My villainy! LEON. Thine, Claudio; thine, I say. D. PEDRO. You say not right, old man. LEON. My lord, my lord, I'll prove it on his body, if he dare; Despite his nice fence and his active practice, His May of youth, and bloom of lustihood. CLAUD. Away, I will not have to do with you. LEON. Canst thou so daff mea? Thou hast kill'd my child; If thou kill'st me, boy, thou shalt kill a man. ANT. He shall kill two of us, and men indeed ; a Daff me-put me aside. 58 [ACT V. MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. But that 's no matter; let him kill one first ;- Win me and wear me,-let him answer me,— Come follow me, boy; come sir boy, come follow meª: Sir boy, I'll whip you from your foining fence; Nay, as I am a gentleman, I will. LEON. Brother,- b ANT. Content yourself: God knows, I lov'd my niece; And she is dead, slander'd to death by villains; That dare as well answer a man, indeed, As I dare take a serpent by the tongue : Boys, apes, braggarts, Jacks, milksops!- LEON. Brother Antony,— ANT. Hold you content: What, man! I know them, yea, And what they weigh, even to the utmost scruple : Scambling, out-facing, fashion-monging boys, That lie, and cog, and flout, deprave, and slander, Go anticly, and show outward hideousness, And speak off half a dozen dangerous words, How they might hurt their enemies, if they durst, And this is all. LEON. But, brother Antony,- ANT. Come, 't is no matter; Do not you meddle, let me deal in this. D. PEDRO. Gentlemen both, we will not wake your patience. My heart is sorry for your daughter's death; But, on my honour, she was charg'd with nothing But what was true, and very full of proof. LEON. My lord, my lord,— D. PEDRO. LEON. Come, brother, away :-I will be heard ;- I will not hear you. No? ANT. And shall, Or some of us will smart for it. [Exeunt LEONATO and ANTONIO. Enter BENEDICK. D. PEDRO. See, see; here comes the man we went to seek. CLAUD. Now, signior! what news? BENE. Good day, my lord. D. PEDRO. Welcome, signior: You are almost come to part almost a fray. a Steevens destroys this most characteristic line-and his reading is that of all popular editions -by his old fashion of metre-monging. He reads,— "Come follow me, boy: come boy, follow me." b Foining-thrusting. с Fashion-monging. So the original copies; but always altered to "fashion-mong'ring." The participle of the Anglo-Saxon verb, meaning to trade, would give us monging; as the verb gives us the noun signifying a trader-monger. SCENE 1.] 59 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. CLAUD. We had like to have had our two noses snapped off with two old men without teeth. D. PEDRO. Leonato and his brother: What think'st thou? Had we fought, I doubt we should have been too young for them. BENE. In a false quarrel there is no true valour: I came to seek you both. CLAUD. We have been up and down to seek thee; for we are high proof melan- choly, and would fain have it beaten away: Wilt thou use thy wit? BENE. It is in my scabbard: Shall I draw it? D. PEDRO. Dost thou wear thy wit by thy side? CLAUD. Never any did so, though very many have been beside their wit.—I will bid thee draw, as we do the minstrels; draw, to pleasure us. D. PEDRO. As I am an honest man, he looks pale:-Art thou sick, or angry? CLAUD. What! courage, man! What though care killed a cat, thou hast mettle enough in thee to kill care. BENE. Sir, I shall meet your wit in the career, an you charge it against me:— I pray you, choose another subject. CLAUD. Nay, then, give him another staff; this last was broke cross. D. PEDRO. By this light, he changes more and more: I think he be angry indeed. 21 CLAUD. If he be, he knows how to turn his girdle 2¹. BENE. Shall I speak a word in your ear? CLAUD. God bless me from a challenge! BENE. You are a villain;—I jest not-I will make it good how you dare, with what you dare, and when you dare:-Do me right, or I will protest your cowardice. You have killed a sweet lady, and her death shall fall heavy on you: Let me hear from you. CLAUD. Well, I will meet you, so I may have good cheer. D. PEDRO. What, a feast? a feast? CLAUD. I' faith, I thank him; he hath bid me to a calf's head and a capon, the which if I do not carve most curiously, say my knife 's naught.—Shall I not find a woodcock too? BENE. Sir, your wit ambles well; it goes easily. D. PEDRO. I'll tell thee how Beatrice praised thy wit the other day: I said, thou hadst a fine wit: "True," says she, "a fine little one: No," said I, 66 << (C a great wit; Right," says she,“ a great gross one: Nay," said I, “a good wit;" "Just," said she, "it hurts nobody:" "Nay," said I, "the gen- tleman is wise;" "Certain," said she, "a wise gentleman :" "Nay," said I, he hath the tongues; "That I believe," said she, "for he swore a thing to me on Monday night, which he forswore on Tuesday morning; there's a double tongue; there 's two tongues." Thus did she, an hour together, trans-shape thy particular virtues; yet, at last, she concluded with a sigh, thou wast the properest man in Italy. CLAUD. For the which she wept heartily, and said, she cared not. D. PEDRO. Yea, that she did; but yet, for all that, an if she did not hate him deadly, she would love him dearly: the old man's daughter told us all. 60 [ACT V. MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. CLAUD. All, all; and moreover, "God saw him when he was hid in the garden." D. PEDRO. But when shall we set the savage bull's horns on the sensible Benedick's head? CLAUD. Yea, and text underneath, "Here dwells Benedick the married man?” BENE. Fare you well, boy! you know my mind; I will leave you now to your gossip-like humour: you break jests as braggarts do their blades, which, God be thanked, hurt not.-My lord, for your many courtesies, I thank you: I must discontinue your company: your brother, the bastard, is fled from Messina: you have, among you, killed a sweet and innocent lady: For my lord Lack-beard there, he and I shall meet; and till then peace be with him. [Exit BENEDICK, D. PEDRO. He is in earnest. CLAUD. In most profound earnest; and I'll warrant you, for the love of Beatrice. D. PEDRO. And hath challenged thee? CLAUD. Most sincerely. D. PEDRO. What a pretty thing man is, when he goes in his doublet and hose, and leaves off his wit! CLAUD. He is then a giant to an ape: but then is an ape a doctor to such a man. D. PEDRO. But, soft you, let me be; pluck up, my heart, and be sad! Did he not say my brother was fled? Enter DOGBERRY, VERGES, and the Watch, with CONRADE and BORACHIO. DOGB. Come, you, sir; if justice cannot tame you, she shall ne'er weigh more reasons in her balance: nay, an you be a cursing hypocrite once, you must be looked to. D. PEDRO. How now, two of my brother's men bound! Borachio one! CLAUD. Hearken after their offence, my lord! D. PEDRO. Officers, what offence have these men done? DOGB. Marry, sir, they have committed false report; moreover, they have spoken untruths; secondarily, they are slanders; sixth and lastly, they have belied a lady; thirdly, they have verified unjust things; and, to conclude, they are lying knaves. D. PEDRO. First, I ask thee what they have done; thirdly, I ask thee what 's their offence; sixth and lastly, why they are committed; and, to conclude, what you lay to their charge? CLAUD. Rightly reasoned, and in his own division; and, by my troth, there's one meaning well suited. D. PEDRO. Whom have you offended, masters, that you are thus bound to your answer? this learned constable is too cunning to be understood: What 's your offence? BORA. Sweet prince, let me go no further to mine answer; do you hear me, and let this count kill me. I have deceived even your very eyes: what your wisdoms could not discover these shallow fools have brought to light; who, SCENE I.] 61 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. in the night, overheard me confessing to this man, how don John your brother insensed me to slander the lady Hero; how you were brought into the orchard, and saw me court Margaret in Hero's garments; how you dis- graced her, when you should marry her: my villainy they have upon record; which I had rather seal with my death, than repeat over to my shame: the lady is dead upon mine and my master's false accusation; and briefly, I desire nothing but the reward of a villain. D. PEDRO. Runs not this speech like iron through your blood? CLAUD. I have drunk poison whiles he utter'd it. D. PEDRO. But did my brother set thee on to this? BORA. Yea, and paid me richly for the practice of it. D. PEDRO. He is compos'd and fram'd of treachery :— And fled he is upon this villainy. CLAUD. Sweet Hero! now thy image doth appear In the rare semblance that I lov'd it first. DOGB. Come, bring away the plaintiffs; by this time our sexton hath reformed signior Leonato of the matter: And, masters, do not forget to specify, when time and place shall serve, that I am an ass. VERG. Here, here comes master signior Leonato, and the sexton too. Re-enter LEONATO and ANTONIO, with the Sexton. LEON. Which is the villain? Let me see his eyes; That when I note another man like him I may avoid him : Which of these is he? BORA. If you would know your wronger, look on me. LEON. Art thou-thou a -the slave that with thy breath hast kill'd Mine innocent child? BORA. Yea, even I alone. LEON. No, not so, villain; thou beliest thyself; Here stand a pair of honourable men, A third is fled, that had a hand in it : I thank you, princes, for my daughter's death; Record it with your high and worthy deeds; "T was bravely done, if you bethink you of it. CLAUD. I know not how to pray your patience, Yet I must speak: Choose your revenge yourself; Impose me to what penance your invention Can lay upon my sin: yet sinn'd I not, But in mistaking. D. PEDRO. By my soul, nor I; And yet, to satisfy this good old man, I would bend under any heavy weight That he 'll enjoin me to. • The exquisite repetition of thou is found in the folio. All the modern editions read, "Art thou the slave." 62 [ACT V. MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. LEON. I cannot bid you bid my daughter live, That were impossible; but I pray you both, Possess the people in Messina here How innocent she died: and, if your love Can labour aught in sad invention, Hang her an epitaph upon her tomb, And sing it to her bones; sing it to-night- To-morrow morning come you to my house; And since you could not be my son-in-law, Be yet my nephew: my brother hath a daughter, Almost the copy of my child that 's dead, And she alone is heir to both of us; Give her the right you should have given her cousin, And so dies my revenge. CLAUD. O, noble sir, Your over kindness doth wring tears from me! I do embrace your offer; and dispose For henceforth of poor Claudio. LEON. To-morrow then I will expect your coming; To-night, I take my leave. This naughty man Shall face to face be brought to Margaret, Who, I believe, was pack'da in all this wrong, Hir'd to it by your brother. BORA. No, by my soul, she was not; Nor knew not what she did, when she spoke to me ; But always hath been just and virtuous, In anything that I do know by her. DOGB. Moreover, sir, (which, indeed, is not under white and black,) this plaintiff here, the offender, did call me ass: I beseech you, let it be remembered in his punishment: And also, the watch heard them talk of one Deformed: they say, he wears a key in his ear, and a lock hanging by it; and borrows money in God's name; the which he hath used so long, and never paid, that now men grow hard-hearted, and will lend nothing for God's sake: Pray you, examine him upon that point. LEON. I thank thee for thy care and honest pains. DOGB. Your worship speaks like a most thankful and reverend youth; and I praise God for you. LEON. There 's for thy pains. DOGB. God save the foundation! LEON. GO, I discharge thee of thy prisoner, and I thank thee. DOGB. I leave an arrant knave with your worship; which, I beseech your wor- ship, to correct yourself, for the example of others. God keep your worship; 8 I wish your worship well; God restore you to health: I humbly give you Pack'd. The quarto and folio both have packt. Prynne tells us of a "pack'd parliament;" and in our own days we have heard of a "pack'd jury." SCENE II.] 63 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. leave to depart; and if a merry meeting may be wished, God prohibit it. Come, neighbour. [Exeunt DOGBERRY, VERGES, and Watch. LEON. Until to-morrow morning, lords, farewell. ANT. Farewell, my lords; we look for you to-morrow. D. PEDRO. We will not fail. CLAUD. To-night I 'll mourn with Hero. [Exeunt DON PEDRO and CLAUDIO. [Exeunt. LEON. Bring you these fellows on; we 'll talk with Margaret, How her acquaintance grew with this lewd fellow. SCENE II.-Leonato's Garden. Enter BENEDICK and MARGARET, meeting. BENE. Pray thee, sweet mistress Margaret, deserve well at my hands, by helping me to the speech of Beatrice. MARG. Will you then write me a sonnet in praise of my beauty? BENE. In so high a style, Margaret, that no man living shall come over it; for, in most comely truth, thou deservest it. MARG. To have no man come over me? why, shall I always keep below stairs? BENE. Thy wit is as quick as the greyhound's mouth, it catches. MARG. And yours as blunt as the fencer's foils, which hit, but hurt not. BENE. A most manly wit, Margaret, it will not hurt a woman; and so, I thee, call Beatrice: I give thee the bucklers. MARG. Give us the swords, we have bucklers of our own. pray BENE. If you use them, Margaret, you must put in the pikes with a vice; and they are dangerous weapons for maids. MARG. Well, I will call Beatrice to you, who, I think, hath legs. BENE. And therefore will come. The god of love 22 That sits above, And knows me, and knows me, How pitiful I deserve,- [Exit MARGARET. [Singing. I mean in singing; but in loving,-Leander the good swimmer, Troilus the first employer of panders, and a whole book full of these quondam carpet- mongers, whose names yet run smoothly in the even road of a blank verse, why, they were never so truly turned over and over as my poor self, in love: Marry, I cannot show it in rhyme; I have tried; I can find out no rhyme to "lady" but "baby," an innocent rhyme; for "scorn," "horn,” a hard rhyme; for "school," "fool," a babbling rhyme; very ominous end- ings: No, I was not born under a rhyming planet, nor I cannot woo in festival terms. Enter BEATRICE. Sweet Beatrice, wouldst thou come when I called thee? 64 [ACT V. MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. BEAT. Yea, signior, and depart when you bid me. BENE. O, stay but till then! BEAT. Then, is spoken; fare you well now:- -and yet, ere I go, let me go with that I came for, which is, with knowing what hath passed between you and Claudio. BENE. Only foul words; and thereupon I will kiss thee. BEAT. Foul words is but foul wind, and foul wind is but foul breath, and foul breath is noisome; therefore I will depart unkissed. BENE. Thou hast frighted the word out of his right sense, so forcible is thy wit : But, I must tell thee plainly, Claudio undergoes a my challenge; and either I must shortly hear from him, or I will subscribe him a coward. And, I pray thee now, tell me, for which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me? BEAT. For them all together; which maintained so politic a state of evil, that they will not admit any good part to intermingle with them. But for which of my good parts did you first suffer love for me? BENE. "Suffer love;" a good epithet! I do suffer love, indeed, for I love thee against my will. BEAT. In spite of your heart, I think; alas! poor heart! If you spite it for my sake, I will spite it for yours; for I will never love that which my friend hates. BENE. Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably. BEAT. It appears not in this confession: there's not one wise man among twenty that will praise himself. you ? BENE. An old, an old instance, Beatrice, that lived in the time of good neigh- bours b: if a man do not erect in this age his own tomb ere he dies, he shall live no longer in monument than the bells ring, and the widow weeps. BEAT. And how long is that, think BENE. Question?-Why, an hour in clamour, and a quarter in rheum: There- fore it is most expedient for the wise (if don Worm, his conscience, find no impediment to the contrary) to be the trumpet of his own virtues, as I am to myself: So much for praising myself, (who, I myself will bear witness, is praiseworthy,) and now tell me, How doth your cousin? BEAT. Very ill. BENE. And how do you? BEAT. Very ill too. BENE. Serve God, love me, and mend: there will I leave you too, for here comes one in haste. Enter URSULA. с URS. Madam, you must come to your uncle; yonder's old coil at home: it is proved, my lady Hero hath been falsely accused; the prince and Claudio mightily abused; and don John is the author of all, who is fled and gone: will you come presently? Undergoes-passes under. Good neighbours—fairies. • Old coil-great bustle. We have in Henry IV., Part II.,' Act II., " old utis." SCENE III.] 65 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. BEAT. Will you go hear this news, signior? BENE. I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried in thy eyes; and, moreover, I will go with thee to thy uncle's. SCENE III.-The Inside of a Church. [Exeunt. Enter DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, and Attendants, with music and tapers. CLAUD. Is this the monument of Leonato ? ATTEN. It is, my lord. CLAUD. [Reads from a scroll.] "Done to death by slanderous tongues Was the Hero that here lies: Death, in guerdon of her wrongs, Gives her fame which never dies: So the life that died with shame Lives in death with glorious fame. Hang thou there upon the tomb, Praising her when I am dumb.” Now, music sound, and sing your solemn hymn. SONG. "Pardon, Goddess of the night, Those that slew thy virgin knight; For the which, with songs of woe, Round about her tomb they go. Midnight, assist our moan; Help us to sigh and groan, Heavily, heavily: Graves, yawn, and yield your dead, Till death be uttered, Heavenly, heavenly." a CLAUD. Now unto thy bones good night! Yearly will I do this rite. D. PEDRO. Good morrow, masters; put your torches out: The wolves have prey'd and look, the gentle day, Before the wheels of Phoebus, round about Dapples the drowsy east with spots of gray: Thanks to you all, and leave us; fare you well. CLAUD. Good morrow, masters; each his several way. D. PEDRO. Come, let us hence, and put on other weeds; And then to Leonato's we will go. CLAUD. And, Hymen, now with luckier issue speeds Than this, for whom we render'd up this woe! [Exeunt. • Heavenly, heavenly. In the quarto the reading is heavily, heavily. The editors appear to have mistaken the meaning of uttered, interpreting the passage to mean till songs of death be uttered heavily. To utter is here to put out-to expel. Death is expelled heavenly-by the power of heaven. The passage has evidently reference to the sublime verse of Corinthians. COMEDIES.-VOL. II. E 66 [ACT V. MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. SCENE IV.—A Room in Leonato's House. Enter LEONATO, ANTONIO, BENEDICK, BEATRICE, URSULA, Friar, and HERO. FRIAR. Did I not tell you she was innocent? LEON. So are the prince and Claudio, who accus'd her, Upon the error that you heard debated: But Margaret was in some fault for this; Although against her will, as it appears In the true course of all the question. ANT. Well, I am glad that all things sort so well. BENE. And so am I, being else by faith enforc'd To call young Claudio to a reckoning for it. LEON. Well, daughter, and you gentlewomen all, Withdraw into a chamber by yourselves; And, when I send for you, come hither mask'd: The prince and Claudio promis'd by this hour To visit me:—you know your office, brother; You must be father to your brother's daughter, And give her to young Claudio. ANT. Which I will do with confirm'd countenance. BENE. Friar, I must entreat your pains, I think. FRIAR. To do what, signior? BENE. To bind me, or undo me, one of them. Signior Leonato, truth it is, good signior, Your niece regards me with an eye of favour. LEON. That eye my daughter lent her: "T is most true. BENE. And I do with an eye of love requite her. LEON. The sight whereof, I think, you had from me, From Claudio, and the prince. But what's your will? BENE. Your answer, sir, is enigmatical: But, for my will, my will is, your good will May stand with ours, this day to be conjoin'd In the estate of honourable marriage ; In which, good friar, I shall desire your help. LEON. My heart is with your liking. FRIAR. And my help. [Here comes the prince, and Claudio ª.] Enter DON PEDRO and CLAUDIO, with Attendants. D. PEDRO. Good morrow to this fair assembly. LEON. Good morrow, prince; good morrow, Claudio ; We here attend you. Are you yet determin'd To-day to marry with my brother's daughter? CLAUD. I'll hold my mind, were she an Ethiope. 8 The passage in brackets is omitted in the folio. [Exeunt Ladies. SCENE IV.] 67 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. LEON. Call her forth, brother, here's the friar ready. D. PEDRO. Good morrow, Benedick: Why, what's the matter, That you have such a February face, So full of frost, of storm, and cloudiness? CLAUD. I think he thinks upon the savage bull:- Tush, fear not, man, we 'll tip thy horns with gold, And all Europa shall rejoice at thee; As once Europa did at lusty Jove, When he would play the noble beast in love. BENE. Bull Jove, sir, had an amiable low; And some such strange bull leap'd your father's cow, And got a calf in that same noble feat, Much like to you, for you have just his bleat. Re-enter ANTONIO, with the Ladies masked. CLAUD. For this I owe you: here come other reckonings. Which is the lady I must seize upon? ANT. This same is she, and I do give you her. CLAUD. Why, then she's mine: Sweet, let me see your face. LEON. No, that you shall not, till you take her hand Before this friar, and swear to marry her. CLAUD. Give me your hand before this holy friar ; I am your husband, if you like of me. HERO. And when I liv'd, I was your other wife : And when you lov'd, you were my other husband. CLAUD. Another Hero? HERO. Nothing certainer : One Hero died [defil'd a;] but I do live, And, surely as I live, I am a maid. D. PEDRO. The former Hero! Hero that is dead! LEON. She died, my lord, but whiles her slander liv’d. FRIAR. All this amazement can I qualify; When, after that the holy rites are ended, I'll tell you largely of fair Hero's death: Meantime, let wonder seem familiar, And to the chapel let us presently. BENE. Soft and fair, friar.-Which is Beatrice ? BEAT. I answer to that name [unmasking]; what is BENE. Do not you love me? BEAT. 8 your will? Why nob, no more than reason. • The word defil'd is also wanting in the folio. [Exit ANTONIO. [Unmasking. Why no. Steevens rejects the why, upon the old principle of its being "injurious to metre.” When Benedick in the same way replies to the question of Beatrice, "Do not you love me?" the poet throws a spirit and variety into the answer, by making it, "Troth no, no more than reason." Steevens E 2 68 [ACT V. MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. BENE. Why then your uncle, and the prince, and Claudio, Have been deceiv'd; they swore you did. BEAT. Do not you love me? BENE. Troth no, no more than reason. BEAT. Why then my cousin, Margaret, and Ursula, Are much deceiv'd; for they did swear you did. BENE. They swore that you were almost sick for me. BEAT. They swore that you were well nigh dead for me. BENE. 'T is no such matter:-Then you do not love me? BEAT. No, truly, but in friendly recompense. LEON. Come, cousin, I am sure you love the gentleman. CLAUD. And I'll be sworn upon 't, that he loves her ; For here 's a paper, written in his hand, A halting sonnet of his own pure brain, Fashion'd to Beatrice. HERO. And here's another, Writ in my cousin's hand, stolen from her pocket, Containing her affection unto Benedick. BENE. A miracle; here's our own hands against our hearts!-Come, I will have thee; but, by this light, I take thee for pity. BEAT. I would not deny you;-but, by this good day, I yield upon great per- suasion; and, partly, to save your life, for I was told you were in a consump- tion. BENE. Peace, I will stop your mouth a. [Kissing her. D. PEDRO. How dost thou, Benedick the married man ? BENE. I'll tell thee what, prince; a college of wit-crackers cannot flout me out of my humour: Dost thou think I care for a satire, or an epigram? No: if a man will be beaten with brains, a shall wear nothing handsome about him: In brief, since I do purpose to marry, I will think nothing to any pur- pose that the world can say against it; and therefore never flout at me for what b I have said against it; for man is a giddy thing, and this is my con- clusion. For thy part, Claudio, I did think to have beaten thee; but in that thou art like to be my kinsman, live unbruised, and love my cousin. CLAUD. I had well hoped thou wouldst have denied Beatrice, that I might have cudgelled thee out of thy single life, to make thee a double dealer; which, out of question, thou wilt be, if my cousin do not look exceeding narrowly с to thee. BENE. Come, come, we are friends :-let's have a dance ere we are married, that we may lighten our own hearts, and our wives' heels. Steevens cuts out the troth; the metre, says he, is overloaded. It would matter little what Steevens did with his own edition, but he has furnished the text of every popular edition of Shak- spere extant; and for this reason we feel it a duty perpetually to protest against his corruptions of the real text. • The old copies give the line to Leonato. b What is omitted in the folio. In that-because. SCENE IV.] 69 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. LEON. We'll have dancing afterwards. BENE. First, o' my word; therefore, play music.- Prince, thou art sad; get thee a wife, get thee a wife; there is no staff more reverend than one tipped with horn 23. Enter a Messenger. MESS. My lord, your brother John is ta'en in flight, And brought with armed men back to Messina. BENE. Think not on him till to-morrow; I'll devise thee brave punishments for him.-Strike up, pipers. [Dance. Exeunt. [Scene III. Hero's Tomb.] ILLUSTRATIONS. ACT I. We puff direct, and the puff collateral, and the puff oblique" were not then invented. shall probably return in some degree to the simplicity of the old time, and once more be content to "set up our bills;" for puffery has destroyed itself. When everything has become alike superlative there are no superlatives. and my uncle's fool, reading the challenge, subscribed for Cupid, and challenged him at the bird-bolt." ¹ SCENE I.-" He set up his bills.” THE history of advertising, if well worked out, would form one of the most curious chapters of any account of the progress of English civilisa- tion. We are here in the rude stages of that history, and see the beginnings of the crav- ing for publicity which was to produce that marvel of society, a Times newspaper of 1851. In Shakspere's day the bearwards, fencing- 2 SCENE I.—“ Challenged Cupid at the flight: masters, mountebanks, and players, "set up their bills upon posts;" masterless men "set up their bills in Paul's for services;" school- masters "pasted up their papers on every post for arithmetic and writing;" and it is recorded as a somewhat clever proceeding, that a man having lost his purse "set up bills in divers places, that if any man of the city had found the purse and would bring it again to him, he should have well for his labour." These were very simple and straghtforward operations. The mysteries of advertising were not then studied. Men had to make their plain an- nouncements, and to be attended to. "The In Ben Jonson's 'Cynthia's Revels' Mercury says to Cupid, "I fear thou hast not arrows for the purpose;" to which Cupid replies, "O yes, here be of all sorts, flights, rovers, and butt- shafts." Gifford explains that "flights were long and light-feathered arrows which went level to the mark." These were the weapons for Cupid and Benedick therefore is said to have "challenged Cupid at the flight," with arrows such as these :— L SCENE I.] 71 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. But "my uncle's fool" thought Benedick was better qualified to match with him in the skil- ful use of that blunt and heavy weapon whose employment by those of his vocation has passed into a proverb-" a fool's bolt is soon shot.” Douce has preserved the forms of some of these bird-bolts :- 3 (and which we shall have more particularly to notice in Act II.,) the hat underwent every possible transition of form. We had intended to have illustrated this by exhibiting the prin- cipal varieties which we find in pictures of that day; but if our blocks had been as numerous as these blocks, we should have filled pages with the graceful or grotesque caprices of the exqui- sites from whom Brummell inherited his belief in the powers of the hat: "Why, Mr. Brummell, does an Englishman always look better dressed than a Frenchman?" The oracular reply was, "T is the hat." We present, however, the por- trait of one ancient Brummell, with a few hats at his feet to choose from. [Fulke Greville, first Lord Brooke.] ³ SCENE I.—“He wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat; it ever changes with the next block." In the perpetual change of fashions which was imputed to the English of Elizabeth's day, 4 SCENE I." Cupid is a good hare-finder, and Vulcan a rare carpenter." The English commentators can give no explanation of this passage; except Steevens, who makes it the vehicle for one of his Collins notes. Tieck says that Ayrer of Nürnberg,― who has treated after his own manner the novel of Bandello upon which this comedy is founded,―introduces Venus complaining that Cupid has shot many arrows in vain at the Count Claudio of his story, and that Vulcan will make no more arrows; and Tieck adds his opinion that Ayrer was acquainted with some English comedy older than that of Shak- spere, from which Cupid and Vulcan have been derived. The resemblance which Tieck pro- duces is not very striking. Benedick's allusion, whatever it be, must pass to the limbo of meaningless jokes—that is, jokes of which time has worn out the application. 72 [ACT I. ILLUSTRATIONS. 5 SCENE I.-" Like the old tale, my lord: 'it is not so, nor 't was not so; but, indeed, God forbid it should be so.' """ Mr. Blakeway, who has contributed a few valuable notes to Shakspere which will be found in Boswell's edition of Malone, has given us an illustration of this passage, in his own recollections of an old tale to which he thinks our poet evidently alludes, "and which has often froze my young blood, when I was a child, as, I dare say, it had done his before me." At "Once upon a time there was a young lady (called Lady Mary in the story) who had two brothers. One summer they all three went to a country-seat of theirs, which they had not before visited. Among the other gentry of the nighbourhood who came to see them was a Mr. Fox, a bachelor, with whom they, particularly the young lady, were much pleased. He used often to dine with them, and frequently invited Lady Mary to come and see his house. One day that her brothers were absent elsewhere, and she had nothing better to do, she determined to go thither, and accordingly set out un- attended. When she arrived at the house, and knocked at the door, no one answered. length she opened it and went in. Over the portal of the hall was written, 'Be bold, be bold, but not too bold. She advanced: over the stair- case, the same inscription. She went up: over the entrance of a gallery, the same. She pro- ceeded over the door of a chamber,-'Be bold, be bold, but not too bold, lest that your heart's blood should run cold.' She opened it-it was full of skeletons, tubs full of blood, &c. She retreated in haste. Coming down stairs she saw, out of a window, Mr. Fox advancing towards the house, with a drawn sword in one hand, while with the other he dragged along a young lady by her hair. Lady Mary had just time to slip down and hide herself under the stairs before Mr. Fox and his victim arrived at the foot of them. As he pulled the young lady up stairs she caught hold of one of the banisters with her hand, on which was a rich bracelet. Mr. Fox cut it off with his sword: the hand and bracelet fell into Lady Mary's lap, who then contrived to escape unobserved, and got home safe to her brothers' house. "After a few days Mr. Fox came to dine with them as usual (whether by invitation or of his own accord, this deponent saith not). After dinner, when the guests began to amuse each other with extraordinary anecdotes, Lady Mary at length said she would relate to them a remarkable dream she had lately had. "I dreamt,' said she, 'that as you, Mr. Fox, had often invited me to your house, I would go there one morning. When I came to the house, I knocked, &c., but no one answered. When I opened the door, over the hall was written, Be bold, be bold, but not too bold. But,' said she, turning to Mr. Fox, and smiling, ‘It is not so, nor it was not so ;' then she pursues the rest of the story, concluding at every turn with 'It is not so, nor it was not so,' till she comes to the room full of bodies, when Mr. Fox took up the burden of the tale, and said, 'It is not so, nor it was not so, and God forbid it should be so:' which he continues to repeat at every subsequent turn of the dreadful story, till she came to the circumstance of his cutting off the young lady's hand, when, upon his saying as usual, It is not so, nor it was not so, and God forbid it should be so,' Lady Mary retorts, 'But it is so, and it was so, and here the hand I have to show,' at the same time producing the hand and bracelet from her lap: whereupon the guests drew their swords, and instantly cut Mr. Fox into a thousand pieces." SCENE I." Hang me in a bottle like a cat," &c. This is very obvious. A cat was hung in a bottle and shot at;-as cocks were thrown at. Yet we have a story of a cat being closed up in a wooden bottle, containing also soot, and he that beat out the bottom of the bottle, and escaped the soot, running under it, was the winner. The cat shot at was probably a real cat on some occasions, and on others a stuffed cat ; as the popinjay in 'Old Mortality' had He that probably a fluttering predecessor. should be "clapped on the shoulder, and called Adam," was to be so honoured, in allusion to the famous old archer Adam Bell, who "sat in Englyshe wood, Under the green-wood tre." See Note on 'Romeo and Juliet,' Act II., Sc. 1. 7 SCENE I.-"Ere you flout old ends any further." The "old ends" flouted at were probably the formal conclusions of letters, such as we find in The Paston Letters :-"No more at this time, but the Trinity have you in protection, SCENE III.] 73 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. &c. Written on the feast of All Saints, between mass and matins, calamo festinante." (Edit. by A. Ramsay, vol. i. p. 3.) [Canker-Rosa Canina.] 8 SCENE III." I had rather be a canker in a hedge than a rose in his grace." In an Illustration of The Two Gentlemen of Verona' (Act I., Sc. 1) we have shown how fre- quently Shakspere uses the image of the canker in the rose-bud. In the passage before us, a peculiar rose-the common dog-rose of the hedges-is meant. Mr. Richardson says, in his Dictionary, that in Devonshire the dog- rose is called the canker-rose. The name had probably a more universal application; and as "the bud bit with an envious worm "" was cankered, so the small uncultivated rose was compared to the rose of the garden whose beauty was impaired, by the name of canker. 9 SCENE III.-" Smoking a musty room.” Burton in his 'Anatomy of Melancholy,' says, "The smoke of juniper is in great request with us at Oxford, to sweeten our chambers." Where the "perfumer" had been, the real clean- liness of the house or the person was doubtful : as in Ben Jonson's song:- "Still to be neat, still to be drest, Still to be perfum'd as for a feast," &c. ACT II. 10 SCENE I.—“ That I had my good wit out of the Hundred Merry Tales." THE "good wit" of Beatrice consisted in sharp sayings and quaint allusions, and Benedick might naturally enough have twitted her with what we now call a familiarity with 'Joe Miller.' 'The Hundred Merry Tales' were known only by their title; and a great controversy there- fore sprang up whether they were a translation of the Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles' or of the 'Decameron.' We need not enter upon this question; for a fragment of the identical Tales has been discovered, since the days of Reed and Steevens, by Mr. Coneybeare, which shows that the work was literally a jest-book-most pro- bably a chapman's penny book. A copy would now be above all price, if it could be recovered entire. But its loss has occasioned more print- ing, in the way of speculation upon its contents; and thus the world keeps up its stock of typo- graphical curiosities. 11 SCENE I.-" Bring you the length of Prester John's foot." The inaccessibility of Prester John has been described by Butler :- "While like the mighty Prester John, Whose person none dares look upon, But is preserv'd in close disguise From being made cheap to vulgar eyes." 12 SCENE III.-" Carving the fashion of a new doublet." This is the representation of an Englishman thus described by Coryat in his 'Crudities:- "We wear more fantastical fashions than any nation under the sun doth, the French only excepted; which hath given occasion to the Venetian and other Italians to brand the Eng- lishman with a notable mark of levity, by painting him stark naked, with a pair of shears in his hand, making his fashion of attire accord- ing to the vain conception of his brain-sick head, not to comeliness and decorum." 74 [ACT III. ILLUSTRATIONS. The print from which we copy is in Borde's 'Introduction of Knowledge;' and we subjoin the verses which are given under it :- 13 SCENE III.-"Stalk on, stalk on: the fowl sits." The stalking-horse is thus described in an ancient tract, New Shreds of the Old Snare,' by John Gee :-"Methinks I behold the cun- ning fowler, such as I have known in the fen- countries and elsewhere, that do shoot at wood- cocks, snipes, and wild-fowl, by sneaking behind a painted cloth which they carry before them, having pictured on it the shape of a horse; which, while the silly fowl gazeth on, it is knocked down with hail-shot, and so put in the fowler's budget." There were stalking-bulls as well as stalking-horses; and the process of decoying partridges in this way into a net is de- scribed in Willughby's ' Ornithology.' "I am an Englishman, and naked I stand here, Musing in my mynde what rayment I shall were; For now I will were this, and now I will were that, Now I will were I cannot tell what." ACT 14 SCENE I.—" Haggards of the rock.” SIMON Latham, in his 'Book of Falconry,' thus describes the wild and unsocial nature of this species of hawk:-"She keeps in subjection the most part of all the fowl that fly, insomuch that the tassel gentle, her natural and chiefest companion, dares not come near that coast where she useth, nor sit by the place where she standeth. Such is the greatness of her spirit, Such is the greatness of her spirit, she will not admit of any society until such a time as nature worketh." 15 SCENE I." What fire is in mine ears?" The popular opinion here alluded to is as old as Pliny:-" Moreover is not this an opinion generally received, that when our ears do glow and tingle, some there be that in our absence do talk of us?"-Holland's Translation, b. xxviii. 16 SCENE II.—“ His jesting spirit; which is now crept into a lutestring :”—i. e. his jocular wit is now employed in the inditing of love-songs, which, in Shakspere's time, were usually accom- panied on the lute. The "stops" are the frets of the lute, and those points on the finger- board on which the string is pressed, or stopped, by the finger. III. 17 SCENE III.-" Bear you the lantern". a care that your bills be not stolen.” "have At the close of Act III. we have introduced a representation of two "ancient and most quiet watchmen," of the days of Shakspere. The one with the bill is from the title-page of Dekker's per se, O,' 1612. The other with the hal- berd is from a print of the same period. The lanterns below are grouped from prints of a similar date. SCENE IV.] 75 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. Slow. 18 SCENE IV.—“ Troth, I think your other rabato were better." The rabato was the ruff, or collar for the neck, such as we often see in the portraits of Queen Elizabeth. Dekker calls them "your stiff- necked rebatoes." Menage derives it from rebattre, to put back. The portrait in the op- posite column offers a pleasing example of this costume. 19 SCENE IV.—“ Clap us into—' Light o' love.” The name of an old tune; mentioned also in the Two Gentlemen of Verona,' Act I., Scene 2. Subsequently to the publication of his history, Sir John Hawkins states that he "lately recovered it from an ancient MS." He gives the melody only, in the following manner. We have added a base and a few notes of accompaniment :— D:6 4 ま ​우 ​ [The Holy Thistle.] 20 SCENE IV." Carduus Benedictus." We look back with wonder upon the import- ance attached by our ancestors to old women's remedies. That they confided in such powers as those of the Blessed Thistle, and of "Spermaceti for an inward bruise," was a part of the system of belief which belonged to their age; and which was in itself of more sovereign virtue than we are apt to imagine. Perhaps our faith in a fashionable physician- which, after all, is no abiding faith-would not stand a more severe examination. But at any rate no one now believes in calomel or quinine, as a writer of Shakspere's day believed in the Carduus Benedictus. "This herb may worthily 76 COSTUME. be called Benedictus, or Omnimorbia, that is, | providence of Almighty God."-Cogan's 'Haven a salve for every sore, not known to physicians of Health,' 1595. of old time, but lately revealed by the special ACT 21 SCENE I.-"If he be [angry], he knows how to turn his girdle.” THIS was a common form of expression, de- rived from the practice of wrestlers, and thus explained by Mr. Holt White:-"Large belts were worn with the buckle before; but for wrestling the buckle was turned behind, to give the adversary a fairer grasp at the girdle. To turn the buckle behind, therefore, was a chal- lenge. Sir Ralph Winwood, in a letter to Cecil, says, "I said, what I spake was not to make him angry. He replied, If I were angry, I might turn the buckle of my girdle behind me." V. 23 SCENE IV." There is no staff more reverend than one tipped with horn.” Steevens and Malone have long notes to prove that the staff here alluded to was the long baton appointed to be used in wager of battle. Surely the reverend staff is the old man's walk- ing stick. The "staff tipped with horn" was carried by one of Chaucer's friars. 22 SCENE II-" The god of Love:" "The beginning of an old song by W. E. (William Elderton), a puritanical parody of which, by one W. Birch, under the title of 'The Complaint of a Sinner,' is still extant.” We have not been able to find the tune itself, or any other notice of it. COSTUME. IN affixing by the costume a particular period | being signed (August 3rd, 1529) by Margaret to any of Shakspere's plays which are not his- torical, care should be had to select one as near as possible to the time at which it was written. The comedy of 'Much Ado about Nothing' commences with the return of certain Italian and Spanish noblemen to Sicily after the Now the last war in which the Italians under Spanish dominion were concerned pre- vious to the production of this comedy was terminated by the peace of Cambray, called 'La Paix des Dames,' in consequence of its wars. of Austria in the name of the Emperor Charles V., and the Duchess d'Angoulême in that of her son Francis I. This peace secured to Charles the crown of Naples and Sicily; and, after vanquishing the Saracens at Tunis, he made triumphal entries into Palermo and Mes- sina in the autumn of 1535. Of the costume of this period we have given a detailed description and several pictorial illustrations in 'The Two Gentlemen of Verona,' to which we must refer the reader. MERRY WIVES Of WINDSOR !!! い ​مر [Part of Windsor Castle, built in the time of Elizabeth.] INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. THE first edition of this play was published in 1602. The comedy as it now stands first appeared in the folio of 1623; and the play in that edition contains very nearly twice the number of lines that the original edition contains. The succession of scenes is the same in both copies, except in one instance; but the speeches of the several characters are greatly elaborated in the amended copy, and several of the characters not only heightened, but new distinctive features given to them. Rightly to appreciate this comedy, it is, we conceive, absolutely necessary to dissociate it from the historical plays of Henry IV.' and 'Henry V.' Whether Shakspere produced the original sketch of 'The Merry Wives of Windsor' before those plays, and remodelled it after their appearance, or whether he produced both the original sketch and the finished performance when his audiences were perfectly familiar with the Falstaff, Shallow, Pistol, Nym, Bardolph, and Mistress Quickly of 'Henry IV.' and 'Henry V.,'-it is perfectly certain that he did not intend 'The Merry Wives' as a continuation. It is impossible, however, not to associate the period of the comedy with the period of the histories. But at the same time we must suffer our minds to slide into the belief that the manners of the times of Henry IV. had sufficient points in common with those of the times of Elizabeth to justify the poet in taking no great pains to distinguish between them. The characters speak in the language of truth and nature, which belongs to all time; and we must forget that they some- times use the expressions of a particular time to which they do not in strict propriety belong. The critics have been singularly laudatory of this comedy. Warton calls it "the most complete specimen of Shakspere's comic powers." Johnson says, "This comedy is remarkable for the variety and number of the personages, who exhibit more characters appropriated and discriminated than per- haps can found in any other play." We agree with much of this; but we certainly cannot agree with Warton that it is "the most complete specimen of Shakspere's comic powers." We cannot forget 'As You Like It,' and 'Twelfth Night,' and 'Much Ado About Nothing.' Of those qualities which INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 79 put Shakspere above all other men that ever existed, 'The Merry Wives of Windsor' ex- hibits few traces. Some of the touches, how- ever, which no other hand could give, are to be found in Slender, and we think in Quickly. The principal action of this comedy-the adventures of Falstaff with the Merry Wives-sweeps on with a rapidity of move- ment which hurries us forward to the dénoue- ment as irresistibly as if the actors were under the influence of that destiny which belongs to the empire of tragedy. No re- verses, no disgraces, can save Falstaff from his final humiliation. The net is around him, but he does not see the meshes;-he fancies himself the deceiver, but he is the deceived. The real jealousy of Ford most skilfully helps on the merry devices of his wife; and with equal skill does the poet make him throw away his jealousy, and assist in the last plot against the "unclean knight." The movement of the principal action is beautifully contrasted with the occasional repose of the other scenes. The Windsor of the time of Elizabeth is presented to us, as the quiet country town, sleeping under the shadow of its neighbour the castle. Amidst its gabled houses, separated by pretty gar- dens, from which the elm and the chestnut and the lime throw their branches across the unpaved road, we find a goodly company, with little to do but gossip and laugh, and make sport out of each other's cholers and weaknesses. We see Master Page training his "fallow greyhound;" and we go with Master Ford "a-birding." We listen to the pribbles and prabbles" of Sir Hugh Evans "" and Justice Shallow with a quiet satisfaction; for they talk as unartificial men ordinarily talk, without much wisdom, but with good temper and sincerity. We find ourselves in the days of ancient hospitality, when men could make their fellows welcome without ostentatious display, and half a dozen neigh- bours "could drink down all unkindness over a hot venison pasty." The more busy inhabitants of the town have time to tattle, and to laugh, and be laughed at. Mine Host of the Garter is the prince of hosts; he is the very soul of fun and good temper. His con- trivances to manage the fray between the furious French doctor and the honest Welsh parson are productive of the happiest situa- tions. Caius waiting for his adversary—“ De herring is no dead so as I vill kill him is capital. But Sir Hugh, with his— "There will we make our peds of roses, And a thousand fragrant posies, To shallow- "" Mercy on me! I have a great dispositions to cry," is inimitable. With regard to the under-plot of Fenton and Anne Page--the scheme of Page to marry her to Slender—the counterplot of her mother, "firm for Dr. Caius"-and the management of the lovers to obtain a triumph out of the devices against them-it may be sufficient to point out how skilfully it is in- terwoven with the Herne's Oak adventure of Falstaff. Over all the misadventures of that night, when "all sorts of deer were chas'd,” Shakspere throws his own tolerant spirit of forgiveness and content :- "Good husband, let us every one go home, And laugh this sport o'er by a country fire; Sir John and all." $.St.C. 茶 ​F 2 PERSONS REPRESENTED. SIR JOHN FALSTAFF. Appears, Act I. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act II. sc. 2. Act III. sc. 3; sc. 5. Act IV. sc. 2; sc. 5. Act V. sc. 1; sc. 5. FENTON. Appears, Act I. sc. 4. Act III. sc. 4. Act IV. sc. 6. Act V. sc. 5. SHALLOW, a country justice. Appears, Act I. sc. 1. Act II. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act III. sc. 1; sc. 2; sc. 4. Act IV. sc. 2. Act V. sc. 2. SLENDER, Cousin to Shallow. Appears, Act I. sc. 1. Act II. sc. 3. Act III. sc. 1; sc. 2; sc. 4. Act V. sc. 2; sc. 5. MR. FORD, a gentleman dwelling at Windsor. Appears, Act II. sc. 1; sc. 2. Act III. sc. 2; sc. 3; sc. 5. Act IV. sc. 2; sc. 4. Act V. sc. 1; sc. 5. MR. PAGE, a gentleman dwelling at Windsor. Appears, Act I. sc. 1. Act II. se. 1; sc. 3. Act III. sc. 1; sc. 2; sc. 3; sc. 4. Act IV. sc. 2; sc. 4. Act V. sc. 2; sc. 5. WILLIAM PAGE, a boy, son to Mr. Page. Appears, Act IV. sc. 1. SIR HUGH EVANS, a Welsh parson. Appears, Act I. sc. 1; sc. 2. Act III. sc. 1; sc. 2; sc. 3. Act IV. sc. 1; sc. 2; sc. 4; sc. 5. Act V. sc. 4; sc. 5. DR. CAIUS, a French physician. Appears, Act I. sc. 4. Act II. sc. 3. Act III. sc. 1; sc. 2; sc. 3. Act IV. sc. 2; sc. 5. Act V. sc. 3; sc. 5. Host of the Garter Inn. Appears, Act I. sc. 3. Act II. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act III. sc. 1; sc. 2. Act IV. sc. 3; sc. 5; sc. 6. BARDOLPH, a follower of Falstaff. Appears, Act I. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act II. sc. 2. Act III. sc. 5. Act IV. sc. 3; sc. 5. NYм, a follower of Falstaff. Appears, Act I. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act II. sc. 1. PISTOL, a follower of Falstaff. Appears, Act I. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act II. sc. 1; sc. 2. Act V. sc. 5. ROBIN, page to Falstaff. Appears, Act I. sc. 3. Act II. sc. 2. Act III. sc. 2; sc. 3. SIMPLE, servant to Slender. Appears, Act I. sc. 1; sc. 2; sc. 4. Act III. sc. 1. Att IV. sc. 5. RUGBY, servant to Dr. Caius. Appears, Act I. sc. 4. Act II. sc. 3. Act III. sc. 1; sc. 2. MRS. FORD. Appears, Act I. sc. 1. Act II. sc. 1. Act III. sc. 3. Act IV. sc. 2; sc. 4. Act V. sc. 3; sc. 5. MRS. PAGE. Appears, Act I. sc. 1. Act II. sc. 1. Act III. sc. 2; sc. 3; sc. 4. Act IV. sc. 1; sc. 2; sc. 4. Act V. sc. 3; sc. 5. MRS. ANNE PAGE, daughter to Mrs. Page. Appears, Act I. sc. 1. Act III. sc. 4. Act V. sc. 5. MRS. QUICKLY, servant to Dr. Caius. Appears, Act I. sc. 4. Act III. sc. 4; sc. 5. Act II. sc. 1; sc. 2. Act IV. sc. 1; sc. 5. Act V. sc. 1; sc. 5. Servants to Page, Ford, &c. SCENE, WINDSOR. LJ [“I pray you, sir, walk in."] ACT I. SCENE I.-Windsor. Garden Front of Page's House. Enter Justice SHALLOW, SLENDER, and Sir HUGH EVANS. SHAL. Sir Hugh', persuade me not; I will make a Star-chamber a matter of it: if he were twenty sir John Falstaffs, he shall not abuse Robert Shallow, esquire. SLEN. In the county of Gloster, justice of peace, and coram. a So in Ben Jonson, (' Magnetic Lady,' Act III., Scene 4): "There is a Court above, of the Star-chamber, To punish routs and riots." 82 [ACT I. MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. SHAL. Ay, cousin Slender, and Cust-alorum a. SLEN. Ay, and ratolorum too; and a gentleman born, master parson; who writes himself armigero; in any bill, warrant, quittance, or obligation, armigero b SHAL. Ay, that I do; and have done any time these three hundred years. SLEN. All his successors, gone before him, have done 't; and all his ancestors, that come after him, may: they may give the dozen white luces in their coat. SHAL. It is an old coat. EVA. The dozen white louses do become an old coat well; it agrees well, passant: it is a familiar beast to man, and signifies love. SHAL. The luce is the fresh fish; the salt fish is an old coat2. SLEN. I may quarter, coz? SHAL. You may, by marrying. EVA. It is marring, indeed, if he quarter it. SHAL. Not a whit. EVA. Yes, py 'r lady; if he has a quarter of your coat there is but three skirts for yourself, in my simple conjectures: but that is all one: If sir John Falstaff have committed disparagements unto you, I am of the church, and will be glad to do my benevolence, to make atonements and compromises between you. SHAL. The council shall hear it; it is a riot. EVA. It is not meet the council hear a riot; there is no fear of Got in a riot: the council, look you, shall desire to hear the fear of Got, and not to hear a riot; take your vizaments d in that. SHAL. Ha! o' my life, if I were young again the sword should end it. EVA. It is petter that friends is the sword, and end it: and there is also another e device in my prain, which, peradventure, prings goot discretions with it: There is Anne Page, which is daughter to master George Page, which is pretty virginity. SLEN. Mistress Anne Page? She has brown hair, and speaks small like a woman. Eva. It is that fery person for all the 'orld, as just as you will desire; and seven hundred pounds of moneys, and gold, and silver, is her grandsire upon his death's-bed (Got deliver to a joyful resurrections!) give, when she is able to overtake seventeen years old: it were a goot motion if we leave our pribbles and prabbles, and desire a marriage between master Abraham and mistress Anne Page. SHAL. Did her grandsire leave her seven hundred pound? a Cust-alorum is meant for an abbreviation of Custos Rotulorum. Slender, not understanding the abbreviation, adds, "and ratolorum too." The justice signed his attestations, "jurat' coram me, Roberto Shallow, armigero.” © Have done—we have done—“ his successors, gone before him," as Slender explains it. d Vizaments-advisements. • The folio has Thomas; but Mrs. Page repeatedly calls her husband George. SCENE I.] 83 MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. Eva. Ay, and her father is make her a petter penny. SHAL. I know the young gentlewoman; she has good gifts. EVA. Seven hundred pounds, and possibilities, is goot gifts. SHAL. Well, let us see honest master Page: Is Falstaff there? EVA. Shall I tell you a lie? I do despise a liar as I do despise one that is false; or as I despise one that is not true. The knight, sir John, is there; and, I beseech you, be ruled by your well-willers. I will peat the door [knocks] for master Page. What, hoa! Got pless your house here! PAGE. Who's there? Enter PAGE. EVA. Here is Got's plessing, and your friend, and justice Shallow: and here young master Slender; that, peradventures, shall tell you another tale, if matters grow to your likings. PAGE. I am glad to see your worships well: I thank you for my venison, master Shallow. SHAL. Master Page, I am glad to see you; Much good do it your good heart! I wished your venison better; it was ill killed:-How doth good mistress Page?-and I thank you always with my heart, la; with my heart. PAGE. Sir, I thank you. a SHAL. Sir, I thank you; by yea and no, I do. PAGE. I am glad to see you, good master Slender. SLEN. How does your fallow greyhound, sir? I heard say he was outrun on Cotsall³. PAGE. It could not be judged, sir. SLEN. You'll not confess, you'll not confess. SHAL. That he will not; 't is your fault, 't is your fault:-'T is a good dog. PAGE. A cur, sir. SHAL. Sir, he's a good dog, and a fair dog; Can there be more said? he is good, and fair. Is sir John Falstaff here? PAGE. Sir, he is within; and I would I could do a good office between you. EVA. It is spoke as a Christians ought to speak. SHAL. He hath wronged me, master Page. PAGE. Sir, he doth in some sort confess it. SHAL. If it be confessed it is not redressed; is not that so, master Page? He hath wronged me; indeed, he hath;-at a word he hath;-believe me; Robert Shallow, esquire, saith he is wronged. PAGE. Here comes sir John. Enter Sir JOHN Falstaff, BARDOLPH, Nym, and PISTOL. FAL. Now, master Shallow; you'll complain of me to the king? SHAL. Knight, you have beaten my men, killed my deer, and broke open my lodge. FAL. But not kissed your keeper's daughter. · a I thank you. So the folio. The early quartos, “I love you.” 84 [ACT I. MERRY WIVES OF WindsoR. SHAL. Tut, a pin! this shall be answered. FAL. I will answer it straight ;-I have done all this :-That is now answered. SHAL. The Council shall know this. FAL. 'T were better for you if it were known in counsela; you'll be laughed at. Eva. Pauca verba, sir John, goot worts. FAL. Good worts! good cabbage.-Slender, I broke your head; What matter have you against me? SLEN. Marry, sir, I have matter in my head against you; and against your с coney-catching rascals, Bardolph, Nym, and Pistol. [They carried me to the tavern and made me drunk, and afterwards picked my pocket d.] BARD. You Banbury cheese! SLEN. Ay, it is no matter. PIST. How now, Mephostophilus f? SLEN. Ay, it is no matter. NYм. Slice, I say! pauca, pauca; slice! that's my humour. SLEN. Where's Simple, my man?—can you tell, cousin? EVA. Peace: I pray you! Now let us understand: There is three umpires in this matter, as I understand: that is-master Page, fidelicet, master Page; and there is myself, fidelicet, myself; and the three party is, lastly and finally, mine host of the Garter. PAGE. We three, to hear it and end it between them. EVA. Fery goot: I will make a prief of it in my note-book; and we will after- wards 'ork upon the cause, with as great discreetly as we can. FAL. Pistol— PIST. He hears with ears. EVA. The tevil and his tam! what phrase is this, " He hears with ear?" Why, it is affectations. FAL. Pistol, did you pick master Slender's purse? SLEN. Ay, by these gloves, did he, (or I would I might never come in mine own great chamber again else,) of seven groats in mill-sixpences, and two Edward shovel-boards, that cost me two shilling and two pence a-piece of Yead Miller, by these gloves. FAL. Is this true, Pistol? EVA. No; it is false, if it is a pick-purse. PIST. Ha, thou mountain-foreigner!-Sir John and master mine, a Counsel. Steevens adopts the spelling of the first quarto-council and counsell. The folio in both cases has councell. In the distinction which Steevens has suggested Falstaff makes a small jest-quibbling between the council of the Star-chamber and counsel in the sense of a man's pri- vate advisers. Probably Steevens is right. b Worts was the generic name of cabbages; we have still cole-wort. с d Coney-catcher was synonymous with sharper. a The passage between brackets is not in the folio. • In 'Jack Drum's Entertainment' (1601) we have," you are like a Banbury cheese—nothing but paring.” Mephostophilus is an evil spirit in the old story of Sir John Faustus;'—but a very inferior demon to the extraordinary creation of Goethe. SCENE I.] 85 MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. I combat challenge of this latten bilboa: Word of denial in thy labras b here; Word of denial: froth and scum, thou liest! SLEN. By these gloves, then 't was he. NYM. Be advised, sir, and pass good humours; I will say, (C marry trap," with you, if you run the nuthook's humour on me: that is the very note of it. SLEN. By this hat, then, he in the red face had it: for though I cannot re- member what I did when you made me drunk, yet I am not altogether an ass. FAL. What say you, Scarlet and John? BARD. Why, sir, for my part, I say, the gentleman had drunk himself out of his five sentences. EVA. It is his five senses: fie, what the ignorance is! BARD. And being fapd, sir, was, as they say, cashiered: and so conclusions passed the careers e. SLEN. Ay, you spake in Latin then too; but 't is no matter: I'll ne'er be drunk whilst I live again, but in honest, civil, godly company, for this trick: if I be drunk, I'll be drunk with those that have the fear of God, and not with drunken knaves. EVA. So Got 'udge me, that is a virtuous mind. FAL. You hear all these matters denied, gentlemen; you hear it. Enter Mistress ANNE PAGE with wine; Mistress FORD and Mistress PAGE following. PAGE. Nay, daughter, carry the wine in; we'll drink within. SLEN. O heaven! this is mistress Anne Page. PAGE. How now, mistress Ford? [Exit ANNE PAGE. FAL. Mistress Ford, by my troth, you are very well met: by your leave, good mistress. [Kissing her. PAGE. Wife, bid these gentlemen welcome: Come, we have a hot venison pasty to dinner; come, gentlemen, I hope we shall drink down all unkindness. [Exeunt all but SHALLOW, SLENDER, and Evans. SLEN. I had rather than forty shillings, I had my book of Songs and Sonnets here: Enter SIMPLE. 6 How now, Simple! Where have you been? I must wait on myself, must I? You have not the Book of Riddles' about you, have you? a Bilbo is a sword; a latten bilbo-a sword made of a thin latten plate-expresses Pistol's opinion of Slender's weakness. b Labras-lips; "word of denial in thy labras," is equivalent to "the lie in thy teeth." * The nuthook was used by the thief to hook portable commodities out of a window,—and thus Nym, in his queer fashion, means, "if you say I'm a thief.” d Fap-a cant word for drunk. e • Careers. In the manège to run a career was to gallop a horse violently backwards and for- wards. 86 [ACT I. MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. SIM. Book of Riddles!' why, did you not lend it to Alice Shortcake upon Allhallowmas last, a fortnight afore Michaelmas? SHAL. Come, coz; come, coz; we stay for you. A word with you, coz: marry, this, coz; There is, as 't were, a tender, a kind of tender, made afar off by sir Hugh here:-Do you understand me? SLEN. Ay, sir, you shall find me reasonable; if it be so, I shall do that that is reason. SHAL. Nay, but understand me. SLEN. So I do, sir. EVA. Give ear to his motions, master Slender: I will description the matter to you, if you be capacity of it. SLEN. Nay, I will do as my cousin Shallow says: I pray you, pardon me; he's a justice of peace in his country, simple though I stand here. EVA. But that is not the question; the question is concerning your marriage. SHAL. Ay, there's the point, sir. EVA. Marry, is it; the very point of it; to mistress Anne Page. SLEN. Why, if it be so I will marry her, upon any reasonable demands. Eva. But can you affection the 'oman? Let us command to know that of your mouth or of your lips; for divers philosophers hold that the lips is parcel of the mouth:-Therefore, precisely, can you carry your good will to the maid? SHAL. Cousin Abraham Slender, can you love her? SLEN. I hope, sir,—I will do as it shall become one that would do reason. EVA. Nay, Got's lords and his ladies, you must speak possitable, if you can carry her your desires towards her. SHAL. That you must: Will you, upon good dowry, marry her? SLEN. I will do a greater thing than that, upon your request, cousin, in any reason. SHAL. Nay, conceive me, conceive me, sweet coz; what I do is to pleasure you, coz: Can you love the maid? SLEN. I will marry her, sir, at your request; but if there be no great love in the beginning, yet heaven may decrease it upon better acquaintance, when we are married and have more occasion to know one another: I hope, upon familiarity will grow more contempt a; but if you say, marry her," I will marry her, that I am freely dissolved, and dissolutely. (( EVA. It is a fery discretion answer; save, the faul' is in the 'ort dissolutely: the 'ort is, according to our meaning, resolutely;—his meaning is good. SHAL. Ay, I think my cousin meant well. SLEN. Ay, or else I would I might be hanged, la. Re-enter ANNE PAGE. SHAL. Here comes fair mistress Anne :-Would I were young for your sake, mistress Anne ! a Contempt. The folio reads content-the word which Slender meant to use. soul was thinking of his copy-book adage-" too much familiarity breeds contempt." But the poor SCENE I.] 87 MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. ANNE. The dinner is on the table; my father desires your worship's company. SHAL. I will wait on him, fair mistress Anne. EVA. Od's plessed will! I will not be absence at the grace. [Exeunt SHALLOW and Sir H. EVANS. ANNE. Will 't please your worship to come in, sir? SLEN. No, I thank you, forsooth, heartily; I am very well. ANNE. The dinner attends you, sir. SLEN. I am not a-hungry, I thank you, forsooth. Go, sirrah, for all you are my man, go, wait upon my cousin Shallow : [Exit SIMPLE.] A justice of peace sometime may be beholden to his friend for a man:-I keep but three men and a boy yet, till my mother be dead: But what though? yet I live like a poor gentleman born. ANNE. I may not go in without your worship: they will not sit till you come. SLEN. I' faith, I 'll eat nothing; I thank you as much as though I did. ANNE. I pray you, sir, walk in. SLEN. I had rather walk here, I thank you; I bruised my shin the other day with playing at sword and dagger with a master of fence, three veneys for a dish of stewed prunes; and, by my troth, I cannot abide the smell of hot meat since. Why do your dogs bark so? be there bears i' the town. ANNE. I think there are, sir; I heard them talked of. SLEN. I love the sport well; but I shall as soon quarrel at it, as any man in England :-You are afraid if you see the bear loose, are you not? ANNE. Ay, indeed, sir. 8 SLEN. That's meat and drink to me now: I have seen Sackerson loose twenty times; and have taken him by the chain: but I warrant you, the women have so cried and shrieked at it, that it passed a :-but women, indeed, cannot abide 'em; they are very ill-favoured rough things. Re-enter PAGE. PAGE. Come, gentle master Slender, come; we stay for you. SLEN. I'll eat nothing, I thank you, sir. PAGE. By cock and pye, you shall not choose, sir: come, come. SLEN. Nay, pray you, lead the way. PAGE. Come on, sir. SLEN. Mistress Anne, yourself shall go first. ANNE. Not I, sir; pray you, keep on. SLEN. Truly, I will not go first; truly, la: I will not do you that wrong. ANNE. I pray you, sir. SLEN. I'll rather be unmannerly than troublesome; you do yourself wrong, indeed, la. [Exeunt. a It passed—it surpassed; or, it passed expression—a common mode of referring to something extraordinary. Thus in Act IV., Scene 2, "this passes." 88 [ACT I. MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. SCENE II.-The same. Enter Sir HUGH EVANS and SIMPLE. EVA. Go your ways, and ask of a Doctor Caius' house,-which is the way and there dwells one mistress Quickly, which is in the manner of his nurse, or his dry nurse, or his cook, or his laundry, his washer, and his wringer. SIM. Well, sir. EVA. Nay, it is petter yet:-give her this letter; for it is a 'oman that altoge- ther 's acquaintance with mistress Anne Page: and the letter is, to desire and require her to solicit your master's desires to mistress Anne Page: I pray you, begone; I will make an end of my dinner; there 's pippins and cheese [Exeunt. to come. SCENE III.-A Room in the Garter Iun. Enter FALSTAFF, HOST, BARDOLPH, NYM, PISTOL, and ROBIN. FAL. Mine host of the Garter,— HOST. What says my bully-rook? Speak scholarly and wisely. FAL. Truly, mine host, I must turn away some of my followers. HOST. Discard, bully Hercules; cashier: let them wag; trot, trot. FAL. I sit at ten pounds a week. Host. Thou 'rt an emperor, Cæsar, Keisar, and Pheezar. I will entertain Bar- dolph; he shall draw, he shall tap: said I well, bully Hector? FAL. Do so, good mine host. HOST. I have spoke; let him follow: Let me see thee froth, and lived: I am at a word; follow. [Exit HOST. FAL. Bardolph, follow him: a tapster is a good trade: an old cloak makes a new jerkin; a withered servingman a fresh tapster: Go; adieu. BARD. It is a life that I have desired; I will thrive. e PIST. O base Hungarian wight! wilt thou the spigot wield? [Exit BARD. a Of Dr. Caius' house-ask for Dr. Caius' house-ask which is the way. b Laundry. Sir Hugh means to say launder, or laundress. с • Douce says that bully-rook is not derived from the rook of chess, but that it means a hector- ing cheating sharper. We scarcely think that the Host would have applied such offensive terms to Falstaff, who sat "at ten pounds a-week," and in his expense was an emperor." d Froth, and live. So the folio. The reading of the quarto is "froth and lime,” which is in- terpreted to froth the beer, and lime the sack. But surely the Host would not so unblushingly avow the frauds of his calling. Steevens says the beer was frothed by putting soap in the tankard, and the sack made sparkling by lime in the glass. He does not give us his authority for these retail mysteries of the drawer's craft. The passage in the folio requires no such learned interpretation. Hungarian. So the folio. The quarto, which has supplied the ordinary reading, gives us Gongarian. The editors have retained "Gongarian," because they find a similar epithet in one SCENE III.] 89 MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. NYм. He was gotten in drink: Is not the humour conceited? [His mind is not heroic, and there's the humour of it.a FAL. I am glad I am so acquit of this tinder box; his thefts were too open; his filching was like an unskilful singer,—he kept not time. NYM. The good humour is to steal at a minute's rest ". PIST. Convey, the wise it call: Steal! foh; a fico for the phrase. FAL. Well, sirs, I am almost out at heels. PIST. Why, then let kibes ensue. FAL. There is no remedy; I must coney-catch; I must shift. PIST. Young ravens must have food. FAL. Which of you know Ford of this town? PIST. I ken the wight; he is of substance good. FAL. My honest lads, I will tell you what I am about. PIST. Two yards, and more. FAL. No quips now, Pistol: Indeed I am in the waist two yards about; but I am now about no waste; I am about thrift. Briefly, I do mean to make love to Ford's wife; I spy entertainment in her; she discourses, she carves, she gives the leer of invitation: I can construe the action of her familiar style; and the hardest voice of her behaviour, to be Englished rightly, is, I am sir John Falstaff's. PIST. He hath studied her will, and translated her will, out of honesty into English. NYм. The anchor is deep d: Will that humour pass? FAL. Now, the report goes she has all the rule of her husband's purse; he hath a legion of angels e. PIST. As many devils entertain; and, "To her, boy," say I. NYм. The humour rises; it is good: humour me the angels. FAL. I have writ me here a letter to her: and here another to Page's wife; who even now gave me good eyes too; examined my parts with most judicious eyliads; sometimes the beam of her view gilded my foot, sometimes my portly belly. of the old bombast plays. Hungarian means a gipsy—and is equivalent to the Bohemian of 'Quentin Durward.' In this play the Host calls Simple a "Bohemian Tartar." Bishop Hall, in hisSatires,' has a punning couplet,― "So sharp and meagre, that who should them see Would swear they lately came from Hungary,"- and therefore Malone says that "a Hungarian signified a hungry starved fellow." a The passage in brackets is not in the folio. The expression appears to us uncharacteristic, and was probably omitted for that reason; "he was gotten in drink" being substituted. b Some would read "at a minim's rest." This seems to us a crotchet. The ordinary reading is, "he hath studied her well, and translated her well." The folio gives will in the two instances; and we cannot understand why Malone calls this a corruption. • The commentators give us a page of notes to explain the phrase "the anchor is deep;” and Johnson would read, "the author is deep," receiving Pistol's translated in a literary sense. Surely the phrase of the original requires neither change nor explanation. • So the folio. The quarto reads, "she hath legions of angels." But Mrs. Ford has only the rule of the purse-not the possession of it. 90 [ACT I. MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. : PIST. Then did the sun on dunghill shine. NYм. I thank thee for that humour. FAL. O, she did so course o'er my exteriors with such a greedy intention, that the appetite of her eye did seem to scorch me up like a burning-glass! Here's another letter to her: she bears the purse too; she is a region in Guiana, all gold and bounty. I will be cheater a to them both, and they shall be exchequers to me b; they shall be my East and West Indies, and I will trade to them both. Go, bear thou this letter to mistress Page; and thou this to mistress Ford: we will thrive, lads, we will thrive. PIST. Shall I sir Pandarus of Troy become, And by my side wear steel? then, Lucifer take all ! NYм. I will run no base humour: here, take the humour letter; I will keep the 'haviour of reputation. FAL. Hold, sirrah [to ROB.], bear you these letters tightly ©; Sail like my pinnaced to these golden shores. Rogues, hence, avaunt! vanish like hailstones, go; Trudge, plod away i' the hoof; seek shelter, pack! Falstaff will learn the honour of the age e, French thrift, you rogues; myself, and skirted page. [Exeunt FALSTAFF and ROBIN. Pist. Let vultures gripe thy guts! for gourd and fullam holds, And high and low beguile the rich and poorf; Tester I'll have in pouch, when thou shalt lack, Base Phrygian Turk! NYм. I have operations, which be humours of revenge. PIST. Wilt thou revenge? NYM. By welkin, and her star! PIST. With wit, or steel? NYM. With both the humours, I: I will discuss the humour of this love to Ford ¹. a Cheater. The folio has cheaters. "See note to 'Henry IV., Part II.,' Act II., Scene 4. The escheators, officers of the exchequer, were popularly called cheaters. C Tightly-briskly, cleverly. a Pinnace-a small vessel attached to, or in company with, a larger. • f So the folio. The quarto," the humour of this age." Gourd, fullam, high, and low, were cant terms for false dice. Pistol will have his tester. in pouch by cheating at play. "A The quarto reads, "I have operations in my head." b The editors have altered "Ford" to "Page," and "Page" to "Ford," because "the very re- verse of this happens." Steevens says, "Shakspere is frequently guilty of these little forgetful- nesses." And yet the quarto gives us the reading which the editors adopt. But had Shakspere, who was not quite so forgetful as they represent, no reason for making the change? Nym suggests the scheme of betraying Falstaff; and it was natural that, Ford being first mentioned by Sir John, and Ford's wife being most the subject of conversation, Nym should first propose to "discuss the humour of this love" to Ford. How the worthies arranged their plans afterwards has little to do with the matter: and it is to be observed that they are together when the disclosure takes place to both husbands. SCENE IV.] MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. .91 PIST. And I to Page shall eke unfold, How Falstaff, varlet vile, His dove will prove, his gold will hold, And his soft couch defile. NYм. My humour shall not cool: I will incense Ford to deal with poison; I will possess him with yellowness, for the revolt of miena is dangerous: that is my true humour. PIST. Thou art the Mars of malcontents: I second thee; troop on. [Exeunt. SCENE IV.-A Room in Dr. CAIUS's House. Enter Mrs. QUICKLY, SIMPLE, and RUGBY. QUICK. What: John Rugby!-I pray thee, go to the casement, and see if you can see my master, master Doctor Caius, coming: if he do, i' faith, and find anybody in the house, here will be an old abusing of God's patience and the king's English. RUG. I'll go watch. [Exit RUGBY. QUICK. Go; and we'll have a posset for 't soon at night, in faith, at the latter end of a sea-coal fire. An honest, willing, kind fellow, as ever servant shall come in house withal; and, I warrant you, no tell-tale, nor no breed-bateb: his worst fault is that he is given to prayer; he is something peevish that way; but nobody but has his fault;—but let that pass. Peter Simple you say your name is? SIM. Ay, for fault of a better. QUICK. And master Slender 's your master? SIM. Ay, forsooth. + QUICK. Does he not wear a great round beard, like a glover's paring knife? SIM. No, forsooth: he hath but a little wee face, with a little yellow beard; a cane-coloured beard". QUICK. A softly-sprighted man, is he not? SIM. Ay, forsooth: but he is as tall a man of his hands as any is between this and his head; he hath fought with a warrener. QUICK. HOW Say you?-O, I should remember him: Does he not hold up his head, as it were? and strut in his gait? a Mien. This is mine in the folio; but mien was thus spelt. By "the revolt of mien" Nym may intend the change of complexion-the yellowness of jealousy. Or he may intend by "the revolt of mine" my revolt. The matter is not worth discussing. b Bate is strife. It is "debate." • The ordinary reading is "a Cain-coloured beard." Cain and Judas, according to Theobald, were represented in the old tapestries with yellow beards. But surely the representation was not so general as to become the popular designation of a colour; whereas the colour of cane is intelli- gible to all. The quarto confirms this:- "QUICK. He has as it were a whay-coloured beard. SIM. Indeed my master's beard is kane-coloured." The spelling of the folio is, however, "Caine-coloured." 92 [ACT I. MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. SIM. Yes, indeed, does he. QUICK. Well, heaven send Anne Page no worse fortune! Tell master parson Evans I will do what I can for your master: Anne is a good girl, and I wish- Re-enter RUGBY. RUG. Out, alas! here comes my master. QUICK. We shall all be shenta: Run in here, good young man; go into this closet. [Shuts SIMPLE in the closet.] He will not stay long.—What, John Rugby! John, what John, I say! Go, John, go inquire for thy master; I doubt he be not well, that he comes not home:—And down, down, adown-a, &c. [Sings. Enter Doctor CAIUS. CAIUS. Vat is you sing? I do not like dese toys; Pray you, go and vetch me in my closet un boitier verd; a box, a green-a box; Do intend vat I speak? a green-a box. QUICK. Ay, forsooth, I'll fetch it you. I am glad he went not in himself: if he had found the young man, he would have been horn-mad. [Aside. CAIUS. Fe, fe, fe, fe! ma foi, il fait fort chaud. Je m'en vais à la cour,-la grande affaire. QUICK. Is it this, sir? CAIUS. Ouy; mette le au mon pocket; Depêche, quickly:-Vere is dat knave Rugby? QUICK. What, John Rugby! John! RUG. Here, sir. CAIUS. You are John Rugby, and you are Jack Rugby: Come take-a your rapier, and come after my heel to de court. RUG. 'Tis ready, sir, here in the porch. CAIUS. By my trot, I tarry too long; Od's me! Qu'ay j'oublié ? dere is some simples in my closet dat I vill not for the varld I shall leave behind. QUICK. Ah me! he 'll find the young man there, and be mad! CAIUS. O diable, diable! vat is in my closet?-Villainy! larron! [Pulling SIMPLE out.] Rugby, my rapier. QUICK. Good master, be content. CAIUS. Verefore shall I be content-a? QUICK. The young man is an honest man. CAIUS. Vat shall de honest man do in my closet? dere is no honest man dat shall come in my closet. QUICK. I beseech you, be not so flegmatick; hear the truth of it: He came of an errand to me from parson Hugh. CAIUS. Vell. SIM. Ay, forsooth, to desire her to QUICK. Peace, I pray you. CAIUS. Peace-a your tongue :-Speak-a your tale. a Shent-roughly handled. SCENE IV.] 93 MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. SIM. To desire this honest gentlewoman, your maid, to speak a good word to Mrs. Anne Page for my master, in the way of marriage. QUICK. This is all, indeed, la; but I'll ne'er put my finger in the fire, and need not. CAIUS. Sir Hugh send-a you?-Rugby, baillez me some paper: Tarry you a little-a while. [Writes. QUICK. I am glad he is so quiet: if he had been thoroughly moved you should have heard him so loud and so melancholy.—But notwithstanding, man, I 'll do your master what good I can: and the very yea and the no is, the French doctor, my master,-I may call him my master, look you, for I keep his house; and I wash, wring, brew, bake, scour, dress meat and drink, make the beds, and do all myself:- SIM. 'Tis a great charge to come under one body's hand. QUICK. Are you avised o' that? you shall find it a great charge: and to be up early and down late ;-but notwithstanding, (to tell you in your ear; I would have no words of it,) my master himself is in love with mistress Anne Page: but notwithstanding that, I know Anne's mind, that's neither here nor there. CAIUS. You jack'nape; give-a dis letter to sir Hugh; by gar, it is a challenge: I vill cut his troat in de park; and I vill teach a scurvy jack-a-nape priest to meddle or make:-you may be gone; it is not good you tarry here:—by gar, I vill cut all his two stones; by gar, he shall not have a stone to trow at his dog. [Exit SIMPLE. QUICK. Alas, he speaks but for his friend. CAIUS. It is no matter-a for dat:-do not you tell-a me dat I shall have Anne Page for myself?-by gar, I vill kill de Jack Priest; and I have appointed mine host of de Jarterre to measure our weapon:-by gar, I vill myself have Anne Page. QUICK. Sir, the maid loves you, and all shall be well: we must give folks leave to prate What, the good-jer! CAIUS. Rugby, come to de court vid me:-By gar, if I have not Anne Page, I shall turn your head out of my door :-Follow my heels, Rugby. [Exeunt CAIUS and RUGBY. QUICK. You shall have An fool's-head of your own. No, I know Anne's mind for that: never a woman in Windsor knows more of Anne's mind than I do: nor can do more than I do with her, I thank heaven. FENT. [Within.] Who 's within there? ho! QUICK. Who's there, I trow? Come near the house, I pray you. Enter FENTON. FENT. How now, good woman; how dost thou ? QUICK. The better that it pleases your good worship to ask. FENT. What news? how does pretty mistress Anne? QUICK. In truth, sir, and she is pretty, and honest, and gentle; and one that is your friend, I can tell you that by the way; I praise heaven for it. COMEDIES.—VOL. II. G 94 [ACT I. MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. FENT. Shall I do any good, think'st thou? Shall I not lose my suit? QUICK. Troth, sir, all is in his hands above: but notwithstanding, master Fenton, I'll be sworn on a book, she loves you :-Have not your worship a wart above your eye? FENT. Yes, marry, have I; what of that? QUICK. Well, thereby hangs a tale;-good faith, it is such another Nan;-but, I detest, an honest maid as ever broke bread;—We had an hour's talk of that wart:-I shall never laugh but in that maid's company! But, indeed, she is given too much to allicholly and musing: But for you-Well, go to. FENT. Well, I shall see her to-day; Hold, there's money for thee; let me have thy voice in my behalf: if thou seest her before me, commend me. QUICK. Will I? i' faith, that we will; and I will tell your worship more of the wart, the next time we have confidence; and of other wooers. FENT. Well, farewell; I am in great haste now. [Exit. QUICK. Farewell to your worship.-Truly, an honest gentleman; but Anne loves him not; for I know Anne's mind as well as another does :-Out upon 't! what have I forgot? [Exit. Walipta ["Here's the twin-brother of thy letter."] VASEY. ACT II. SCENE I-Before Page's House. Enter Mistress PAGE, with a Letter. MRS. PAGE. What! have I 'scaped love-letters in the holyday time of my beauty, and am I now a subject for them? Let me see: [Reads. "Ask me no reason why I love you; for though love use reason for his pre- cisian, he admits him not for his counsellora: You are not young, no more am I; go to then, there's sympathy: you are merry, so am I; Ha! ha! then there's more sympathy: you love sack, and so do I; Would you desire better sympathy? Let it suffice thee, mistress Page, (at the least, if the love of soldier can suffice), that I love thee. I will not say, pity me 't is not a soldier-like phrase; but I say, love me. By me, Thine own true knight, By day or night, a Johnson would read physician instead of precisian. The commentators seem inclined to adopt this reading, in despair of understanding the passage as it is. A precisian, we apprehend, is here used for one who puts thoughts into words-an inditer-a scribe. The French précis gives us the meaning. A counsellor is one who confidentially advises;-counsel being often used in the sense of secresy, as in 'Hamlet,' "the players cannot keep counsel." Love, says Falstaff, may use reason to furnish him with some formal expressions, but admits him not as the guide of his inward thoughts. G 2 96 [ACT II. MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. Or any kind of light, With all his might, For thee to fight, John Falstaff.” a 9 What a Herod of Jewry is this!-O wicked, wicked world!—one that is well nigh worn to pieces with age, to show himself a young gallant! What an unweighed behaviour hath this Flemish drunkard picked (with the devil's name) out of my conversation, that he dares in this manner assay me? Why, he hath not been thrice in my company!-What should I say to him?—I was then frugal of my mirth :-heaven forgive me! Why, I'll exhibit a bill in the parliament for the putting down of men ». How shall I be revenged on him? for revenged I will be, as sure as his guts are made of puddings. Enter Mistress FORD. You look very ill. MRS. FORD. Mistress Page! trust me, I was going to your house! MRS. PAGE. And, trust me, I was coming to you. MRS. FORD. Nay, I 'll ne'er believe that; I have to show to the contrary. MRS. PAGE. 'Faith, but you do, in my mind. MRS. FORD. Well, I do, then; yet, I say, I could show you to the contrary: O, mistress Page, give me some counsel ! MRS. PAGE. What's the matter, woman? MRS. FORD. O woman, if it were not for one trifling respect, I could come to such honour. MRS. PAGE. Hang the trifle, woman; take the honour: What is it?-dispense with trifles;-what is it? MRS. FORD. If I would but go to hell for an eternal moment or so, I could be knighted. MRS. PAGE. What? thou liest!-Sir Alice Ford! These knights will hack and so thou shouldst not alter the article of thy gentry. MRS. FORD. We burn daylightd:-here, read, read:-perceive how I might be a The corresponding letter in the quarto furnishes a striking example of the careful mode in which this play was elaborated from the first sketch:- "Mistress Page, I love you. Ask me no reason, because they 're impossible to allege. You are fair, and I am fat. You love sack, so do I. As I am sure I have no mind but to love, so I know you have no heart but to grant. A soldier doth not use many words where he knows a letter may serve for a sentence. I love you, and so I leave you. "Yours, Sir John Falstaff." ↳ Malone would read fat men, because the quarto has, “I shall trust fat men the worse while I live, for his sake." The folio has a corresponding passage to this-" I shall think the worse of fat men, as long as I have an eye to make difference of men's liking;”—and the quarto has no parallel to a bill in the parliament." C (( • Will hack. James I. would make fifty knights before breakfast; and therefore "these knights will hack”—will become common; and for this cause the honour of being "Sir Alice Ford" would not "alter the article of thy gentry"-would not add any lustre to thy gentry. The passage was added in the folio, and it furnishes a proof that the play was enlarged after the accession of James. d • We burn daylight-we waste our time like those who use " lamps by day." See 'Romeo and Juliet,' Act I., Scene 4. SCENE I.] 97 MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. knighted. I shall think the worse of fat men, as long as I have an eye to make difference of men's liking: And yet he would not swear; praised women's modesty; and gave such orderly and well-behaved reproof to all uncomeliness,—that I would have sworn his disposition would have gone to the truth of his words: but they do no more adhere and keep place together than the hundredth psalm to the tune of "Green Sleeves." 10 What tempest, I trow, threw this whale, with so many tuns of oil in his belly, ashore at Windsor? How shall I be revenged on him? I think the best way were to entertain him with hope, till the wicked fire of lust have melted him in his own grease.—Did you ever hear the like? MRS. PAGE. Letter for letter; but that the name of Page and Ford differs! To thy great comfort in this mystery of ill opinions, here's the twin-brother of thy letter: but let thine inherit first; for, I protest, mine never shall. I warrant he hath a thousand of these letters, writ with blank space for different names, (sure more,) and these are of the second edition: He will print them out of doubt; for he cares not what he puts into the press when he would put us two. I had rather be a giantess, and lie under mount Pelion. Well, I will find you twenty lascivious turtles, ere one chaste man. MRS. FORD. Why, this is the very same; the very hand, the very words: What doth he think of us? MRS. PAGE. Nay, I know not: It makes me almost ready to wrangle with mine own honesty. I'll entertain myself like one that I am not acquainted withal; for, sure, unless he know some straina in me, that I know not myself, he would never have boarded me in this fury. MRS. FORD. Boarding, call you it? I'll be sure to keep him above deck. MRS. PAGE. So will I; if he come under my hatches I'll never to sea again. Let's be revenged on him: let's appoint him a meeting; give him a show of comfort in his suit; and lead him on with a fine baited delay, till he hath pawned his horses to mine host of the Garter. MRS. FORD. Nay, I will consent to act any villainy against him, that may not sully the chariness of our honesty. O, that my husband saw this letter! it would give eternal food to his jealousy. MRS. PAGE. Why, look, where he comes; and my good man too; he's as far from jealousy as I am from giving him cause; and that, I hope, is an un- measurable distance. MRS. FORD. You are the happier woman. MRS. PAGE. Let's consult together against this greasy knight: Come hither. Enter FORD, PISTOL, PAGE, and Nyм. [They retire. FORD. Well, I hope it be not so. b PIST. Hope is a curtall dog in some affairs: a Strain-turn, humour, disposition. b Curtall dog. This is not literally a dog without a tail, as it is explained generally; nor is it spelt curtail. The "curtal dog" is, like the "curtal friar," an expression of contempt. The 98 [ACT II. MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. Sir John affects thy wife. FORD. Why, sir, my wife is not young. PIST. He woos both high and low, both rich and poor, Both young and old, one with another, Ford; He loves the gally-mawfry; Ford, perpend. FORD. Love my wife? PIST. With liver burning hot: Prevent, or go thou, Like sir Actæon, he, with Ringwood at thy heels:- O, odious is the name! FORD. What name, sir? PIST. The horn, I say: Farewell. Take heed; have open eye; for thieves do foot by night : Take heed, ere summer comes, or cuckoo birds do sing.— Away, sir corporal Nym.- Believe it, Page; he speaks sense ª. FORD. I will be patient; I will find out this. [Exit PISTOL. NYм. And this is true [to PAGE]; I like not the humour of lying. He hath wronged me in some humours: I should have borne the humoured letter to her; but I have a sword, and it shall bite upon my necessity. He loves your wife; there's the short and the long. My name is corporal Nym; I speak, and I avouch. 'Tis true-my name is Nym, and Falstaff loves your wife.-Adieu! I love not the humour of bread and cheese. Adieu. [Exit NYM. b PAGE. "The humour of it," quoth 'a! here's a fellow frights humour out of his wits. FORD. I will seek out Falstaff. PAGE. I never heard such a drawling-affecting rogue. FORD. If I do find it, well! PAGE. I will not believe such a Cataian, though the priest o'the town commended him for a true man. FORD. 'T was a good sensible fellow: Well! PAGE. How now, Meg? MRS. PAGE. Whither go you, George ?-Hark you. MRS. FORD. How now, sweet Frank? why art thou melancholy? FORD. I melancholy! I am not melancholy. Get you home, go. MRS. FORD. 'Faith, thou hast some crotchets in thy head now.-Will you go, mistress Page? worthless dog may have a short tail, and the Franciscan friar might wear a short garment; and thus they each may be curtailed. But the word came to express some general defect, and is here used in that sense. a Pistol confirms what Nym has been saying, aside, to Page. b Humour is the reading of the quarto. The folio has English. • Warburton says, Cataian meant a liar, because the old travellers in Cathay, such as Marco Polo and Mandeville, told incredible stories of that country. Steevens says that Cataian meant a sharper, the Chinese being held to be of thievish propensities. SCENE I.] 99 MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. MRS. PAGE. Have with you.-You'll come to dinner, George? Look, who comes yonder: she shall be our messenger to this paltry knight. Enter Mrs. QUICKLY. [Aside to Mrs. FORD. MRS. FORD. Trust me, I thought on her: she 'll fit it. MRS. PAGE. You are come to see my daughter Anne? QUICK. Ay, forsooth. And I pray, how does good mistress Anne? MRS. PAGE. Go in with us and see; we have an hour's talk with you. [Exeunt Mrs. PAGE, Mrs. FORD, and Mrs. QUICKLY. PAGE. How now, master Ford? FORD. You heard what this knave told me; did you not? PAGE. Yes. And you heard what the other told me? FORD. Do you think there is truth in them? PAGE. Hang'em, slaves; I do not think the knight would offer it: but these that accuse him in his intent towards our wives are a yoke of his discarded men: very rogues, now they be out of service. FORD. Were they his men? PAGE. Marry were they. FORD. I like it never the better for that.-Does he lie at the Garter? PAGE. Ay, marry, does he. If he should intend this voyage towards my wife, I would turn her loose to him; and what he gets more of her than sharp words, let it lie on my head. FORD. I do not misdoubt my wife; but I would be loth to turn them together: A man may be too confident: I would have nothing lie on my head: I can- not be thus satisfied. PAGE. Look, where my ranting host of the Garter comes: there is either liquor in his pate, or money in his purse, when he looks so merrily.-How now, mine host? Enter Host and SHALLOW. Host. How now, bully-rook? thou 'rt a gentleman: cavalero-justice, I say! SHAL. I follow, mine host, I follow.-Good even, and twenty, good master Page! Master Page, will you go with us? we have sport in hand. HOST. Tell him, cavalero-justice; tell him, bully-rook. SHAL. Sir, there is a fray to be fought, between sir Hugh the Welsh priest and Caius the French doctor. FORD. Good mine host o' the Garter, a word with you. HOST. What say'st thou, my bully-rook? [They go aside. SHAL. Will you [to PAGE] go with us to behold it? My merry host hath had the measuring of their weapons; and, I think, hath appointed them contrary places; for, believe me, I hear the parson is no jester. Hark, I will tell you what our sport shall be. Host. Hast thou no suit against my knight, my guest-cavalier? 100 [ACT II. MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. FORD. None, I protest: but I'll give you a pottle of burnt sack to give me recourse to him, and tell him my name is Brooka: only for a jest. HOST. My hand, bully; thou shalt have egress and regress; said I well? and thy name shall be Brook: It is a merry knight. Will you go on, you go on, heers? SHAL. Have with you, mine host. PAGE. I have heard the Frenchman hath good skill in his rapier¹¹. SHAL. Tut, sir, I could have told you more: In these times you stand on distance, your passes, stoccadoes, and I know not what: 't is the heart, master Page; 't is here, 't is here. I have seen the time with my long sword I would have made you four tall fellows skip like rats. HOST. Here, boys, here, here! shall we wag? PAGE. Have with you:-I had rather hear them scold than fight. [Exeunt HosT, SHALLOW, and PAGE. FORD. Though Page be a secure fool, and stands so firmly on his wife's frailty, yet I cannot put off my opinion so easily: She was in his company at Page's house; and, what they made there I know not. Well, I will look further into 't: and I have a disguise to sound Falstaff: If I find her honest, I lose not my labour; if she be otherwise, 't is labour well bestowed. [Exit. แ SCENE II.-A Room in the Garter Inn. Enter FALSTAFF and PISTOL. FAL. I will not lend thee a penny 12. • PIST. Why, then the world's mine oyster, ፡፡ a The folio throughout gives the assumed name of Ford as Broome; the quartos Brooke. We must adopt the reading of Brook, for we otherwise lose a jest which the folio itself gives us- Such Brooks are welcome to me that o'erflow such liquor;" amplifying the original text- Such Brooks are always welcome to me." For a century after. Shakspere, however, the stage-name was Broome. In Johnson's 'Lives of the Poets' (Life of Fenton) we have the following anec- dote: "Fenton was one day in the company of Broome, his associate, and Ford, a clergyman. *** They determined all to see 'The Merry Wives of Windsor,' which was acted that night; and Fenton, as a dramatic poet, took them to the stage-door; where the door-keeper, inquiring who they were, was told that they were three very necessary men, Ford, Broome, and Fenton. The name in the play which Pope restored to Brook was then Broome." In Langbaine's 'Account of the Dramatic Poets,' 1691, the author refers to Falstaff declaring the intrigue to Mrs. Ford's husband, "under the name of Mr. Broom." b Heers. The folio reads an-heires;—the parallel passage in the quarto is, "Here, boys, shall we wag?" The ordinary reading is, "Will you go on, hearts?" Malone would read, “Will you go and hear us?" Boaden proposes, "Will you go, cavaleires ?" We think that the Host, who, although he desires to talk with the German gentlemen who "speak English," is fond of using foreign words which he has picked up from his guests, such as cavalero, Francisco, and varletto, employs the Dutch Heer, or the German Herr,-Sir,-Master. Both words are pro- nounced nearly alike. He says, "Will you go on, heers?"—as he would say, if he had picked up a French word, "Will you go on, monsieurs ?" с It is curious to find the same language in the mouth of Lear:- "I have seen the day, with my good biting faulchion, I would have made them skip." SCENE II.] 101 MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. Which I with sword will open ª. FAL. Not a penny. I have been content, sir, you should lay my countenance to pawn: I have grated upon my good friends for three reprieves for you and your coach-fellow, Nym; or else you had looked through the grate, like a geminy of baboons. I am damned in hell for swearing to gentlemen my friends you were good soldiers and tall fellows: and when mistress Bridget lost the handle of her fan, I took 't upon mine honour thou hadst it not. PIST. Didst not thou share? hadst thou not fifteen pence? FAL. Reason, you rogue, reason: Think'st thou I'll endanger my soul gratis? At a word, hang no more about me, I am no gibbet for you:-go.—A short knife and a throng;-to your manor of Pickt-hatch, go.-You'll not bear a letter for me, you rogue!-You stand upon your honour!-Why, thou unconfinable baseness, it is as much as I can do to keep the terms of my honour precise. I, I, I myself sometimes, leaving the fear of heaven on the left hand, and hiding mine honour in my necessity, am fain to shuffle, to hedge, and to lurch; and yet you, rogue, will ensconce your rags, your cat-a-mountain looks, your red-lattice phrases, and your bold-beating e oaths, under the shelter of your honour! You will not do it, you? PIST. I do relent. What would thou more of man? Enter ROBIN. ROB. Sir, here's a woman would speak with you. FAL. Let her approach. Enter Mistress QUICKLY. QUICK. Give your worship good morrow. FAL. Good morrow, good wife. QUICK. Not so, an 't please your worship. FAL. Good maid, then. QUICK. I'll be sworn; as my mother was, the first hour I was born. FAL. I do believe the swearer: What with me? QUICK. Shall I vouchsafe your worship a word or two? FAL. Two thousand, fair woman: and I'll vouchsafe thee the hearing. QUICK. There is one mistress Ford, sir;-I pray, come a little nearer this ways:—I myself dwell with master doctor Caius. a The passage in the quarto is thus: "FAL. I'll not lend thee a penny. PIST. I will retort the sum in equipage. FAL. Not a penny." The editors could not be satisfied to receive the beautiful answer of Pistol, "Why, then the world's mine oyster," &c., without retaining the weaker passage, "I will retort the sum in equipage." C b A short knife, &c. A knife to cut purses, and a mob to find them amongst. • Pickt-hatch is mentioned in one of Ben Jonson's Epigrams, in company with "Mersh Lambeth and White Fryers." Each of these was an Alsatia in Shakspere's day. ª Red-lattice phrases—ale-house terms. Thus Falstaff's page in 'Henry IV., Part II.,' Act II., "He called me, even now, my lord, through a red lattice.” Scene 2, says, Bold-beating. Mr. Dyce has no doubt that Hanmer restored the genuine text when he printed bull-baiting. 102 [ACT II. MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. FAL. Well, on: Mistress Ford, you say,- QUICK. Your worship says very true: I pray your worship, come a little nearer this ways. FAL. I warrant thee, nobody hears;-mine own people, mine own people. QUICK. Are they so? Heaven bless them, and make them his servants! FAL. Well: Mistress Ford;-what of her? QUICK. Why, sir, she's a good creature. Lord, lord! your worship's a wanton: Well, heaven forgive you, and all of us, I pray! FAL. Mistress Ford;-come, mistress Ford, QUICK. Marry, this is the short and the long of it; you have brought her into such a canaries, as 't is wonderful. The best courtier of them all, when the court lay at Windsor, could never have brought her to such a canary. Yet there has been knights, and lords, and gentlemen, with their coaches; I warrant you, coach after coach ¹³, letter after letter, gift after gift; smelling so sweetly (all musk), and so rushling, I warrant you, in silk and gold; and in such alligant terms; and in such wine and sugar of the best, and the fairest, that would have won any woman's heart; and, I warrant you, they could never get an eye-wink of her.-I had myself twenty angels given me this morning; but I defy all angels, (in any such sort, as they say,) but in the way of honesty :—and, I warrant you, they could never get her so much as sip on a cup with the proudest of them all: and yet there has been earls, nay, which is more, pensioners 14; but, I warrant you, all is one with her. FAL. But what says she to me? be brief, my good she Mercury. QUICK. Marry, she hath received your letter; for the which she thanks you a thousand times: and she gives you to notify, that her husband will be absence from his house between ten and eleven. FAL. Ten and eleven? QUICK. Ay, forsooth; and then you may come and see the picture, she says, that you wot of; master Ford, her husband, will be from home. Alas! the sweet woman leads an ill life with him; he's a very jealousy man: she leads a very frampolda life with him, good heart. FAL. Ten and eleven: Woman, commend me to her; I will not fail her. QUICK. Why, you say well: But I have another messenger to your worship: Mistress Page hath her hearty commendations to you too;—and let me tell you in your ear, she's as fartuous a civil modest wife, and one (I tell you) that will not miss you morning nor evening prayer, as any is in Windsor, whoe'er be the other: and she bade me tell your worship that her husband is seldom from home; but, she hopes, there will come a time. I never knew a woman so dote upon a man; surely, I think you have charms, la; yes, in truth. FAL. Not I, I assure thee; setting the attraction of my good parts aside I have no other charms. QUICK. Blessing on your heart for 't! FAL. But, I pray thee, tell me this: has Ford's wife and Page's wife acquainted each other how they love me? a Frampold-fretful, uneasy. SCENE II.] 103 MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. QUICK. That were a jest, indeed!—they have not so little grace, I hope :—that were a trick, indeed! But mistress Page would desire you to send her your little page, of all lovesa: her husband has a marvellous infection to the little page: and, truly, master Page is an honest man. Never a wife in Windsor leads a better life than she does; do what she will, say what she will, take all, pay all, go to bed when she list, rise when she list, all is as she will; and, truly, she deserves it: for if there be a kind woman in Windsor, she is one. You must send her your page; no remedy. FAL. Why, I will. QUICK. Nay, but do so then: and, look you, he may come and go between you both; and, in any case, have a nay-word, that you may know one another's mind, and the boy never need to understand anything; for 't is not good that children should know any wickedness; old folks, you know, have discretion, as they say, and know the world. FAL. Fare thee well: commend me to them both: there's my purse; I am yet thy debtor.-Boy, go along with this woman.-This news distracts me! [Exeunt QUICKLY and ROBIN. PIST. This punk is one of Cupid's carriers:— [Exit PISTOL. Clap on more sails; pursue, up with your fights; Give fire; she is my prize, or ocean whelm them all! FAL. Say'st thou so, old Jack? go thy ways; I'll make more of thy old body than I have done. Will they yet look after thee? Wilt thou, after the expense of so much money, be now a gainer? Good body, I thank thee: Let them say, 't is grossly done; so it be fairly done, no matter. Enter BARDOLPH. BARD. Sir John, there's one master Brook below would fain speak with you, and be acquainted with you; and hath sent your worship a morning's draught of sack 15. FAL. Brook is his name? BARD. Ay, sir. FAL. Call him in; [Exit BARDOLPH.] Such Brooks are welcome to me that o'erflow such liquor. Ah! ha! mistress Ford and mistress Page, have I encompassed you? go to; via! Re-enter BARDOLPH, with FORD disguised. FORD. Bless you, sir. FAL. And you, sir: Would you speak with me? a Of all loves. This pretty antique phrase is now obsolete. We have it in 'Othello:' general so likes your music, that he desires you, of all loves, to make no more noise with it.” b Fights. Dryden, in his tragedy of 'Amboyna,' has- "Up with your fights, And your nettings prepare." "The It appears that fights were short sails-fighting sails-not weapons, as Warburton explains the word. مجھو 104 [ACT 11. MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. FORD. I make bold to press with so little preparation upon you. FAL. You're welcome. What's your will? Give us leave, drawer. [Exit BARDOLPH. FORD. Sir, I am a gentleman that have spent much; my name is Brook. FAL. Good master Brook, I desire more acquaintance of you. FORD. Good sir John, I sue for yours: not to charge you; for I must let you understand I think myself in better plight for a lender than you are: the which hath something emboldened me to this unseasoned intrusion: for they say, if money go before all ways do lie open. FAL. Money is a good soldier, sir, and will on. FORD. Troth, and I have a bag of money here troubles me: if you will help to bear it, sir John, take all, or half, for easing me of the carriage. FAL. Sir, I know not how I may deserve to be your porter. FORD. I will tell you, sir, if you will give me the hearing. FAL. Speak, good master Brook; I shall be glad to be your servant. FORD. Sir, I hear you are a scholar,—I will be brief with you, and you have been a man long known to me, though I had never so good means, as desire, to make myself acquainted with you. I shall discover a thing to you, wherein I must very much lay open mine own imperfection: but, good sir John, as you have one eye upon my follies, as you hear them unfolded, turn another into the register of your own; that I may pass with a reproof the easier, sith you yourself know how easy it is to be such an offender. FAL. Very well, sir; proceed. FORD. There is a gentlewoman in this town, her husband's name is Ford. FAL. Well, sir. FORD. I have long loved her, and, I protest to you, bestowed much on her; followed her with a doting observance; engrossed opportunities to meet her; fee'd every slight occasion that could but niggardly give me sight of her; not only bought many presents to give her, but have given largely to many, to know what she would have given: briefly, I have pursued her as love hath pursued me, which hath been on the wing of all occasions. But whatsoever I have merited, either in my mind, or in my means, meed, I am sure, I have received none; unless experience be a jewel; that I have purchased at an infinite rate; and that hath taught me to say this: "Love like a shadow flies, when substance love pursues; Pursuing that that flies, and flying what pursues." FAL. Have you received no promise of satisfaction at her hands? FORD. Never. FAL. Have you importuned her to such a purpose? FORD. Never. FAL. Of what quality was your love then? FORD. Like a fair house built on another man's ground; so that I have lost my edifice, by mistaking the place where I erected it. FAL. To what purpose have you unfolded this to me? FORD. When I have told you that I have told you all. Some say, that, though SCENE II.] 105 MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. she appear honest to me, yet, in other places, she enlargeth her mirth so far that there is shrewd construction made of her. Now, sir John, here is the heart of my purpose: You are a gentleman of excellent breeding, admirable discourse, of great admittance, authentic in your place and person, generally allowed for your many warlike, courtlike, and learned preparations. FAL. O, sir! FORD. Believe it, for you know it :-There is money; spend it, spend it; spend more; spend all I have; only give me so much of your time in exchange of it, as to lay an amiable siege to the honesty of this Ford's wife: use your art of wooing, win her to consent to you; if any man may you may as soon as any. FAL. Would it apply well to the vehemency of your affection, that I should win what you would enjoy? Methinks, you prescribe to yourself very pre- posterously. FORD. O, understand my drift! she dwells so securely on the excellency of her honour, that the folly of my soul dares not present itself; she is too bright to be looked against. Now, could I come to her with any detection in my hand, my desires had instance and argument to commend themselves: I could drive her then from the ward of her purity, her reputation, her marriage vow, and a thousand other her defences, which now are too too strongly embattled against me: What say you to 't, sir John? FAL. Master Brook, I will first make bold with your money; next, give me your hand; and last, as I am a gentleman, you shall, if you will, enjoy Ford's wife. FORD. O good sir! FAL. I say you shall. FORD. Want no money, sir John, you shall want none. FAL. Want no mistress Ford, master Brook, you shall want none. I shall be with her, (I may tell you,) by her own appointment; even as you came in to me, her assistant, or go-between, parted from me: I say, I shall be with her between ten and eleven; for at that time the jealous rascally knave, her husband, will be forth. Come you to me at night; you shall know how I speed. FORD. I am blessed in your acquaintance. Do you know Ford, sir? FAL. Hang him, poor cuckoldly knave! I know him not:-yet I wrong him to call him poor; they say the jealous wittolly knave hath masses of money; for the which his wife seems to me well-favoured. I will use her as the key of the cuckoldly rogue's coffer; and there 's my harvest-home. FORD. I would you knew Ford, sir; that you might avoid him if you saw him. FAL. Hang him, mechanical salt-butter rogue! I will stare him out of his wits; I will awe him with my cudgel: it shall hang like a meteor o'er the cuckold's horns: master Brook, thou shalt know I will predominate over the peasant, and thou shalt lie with his wife.-Come to me soon at night:-Ford's a knave, and I will aggravate his style; thou, master Brook, shalt know him for knave and cuckold:-come to me soon at night. [Exit. 106 [ACT II. MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. FORD. What a damned Epicurean rascal is this!-My heart is ready to crack with impatience.-Who says, this is improvident jealousy? My wife hath sent to him, the hour is fixed, the match is made. Would any man have thought this?-See the hell of having a false woman! My bed shall be abused, my coffers ransacked, my reputation gnawn at; and I shall not only receive this villainous wrong, but stand under the adoption of abominable terms, and by him that does me this wrong. Terms! names!-Amaimon sounds well; Lucifer, well; Barbason, well; yet they are devils' additions, the names of fiends! but cuckold! wittol-cuckold! the devil himself hath not such a name. Page is an ass, a secure ass! he will trust his wife, he will not be jealous; I will rather trust a Fleming with my butter, parson Hugh the Welshman with my cheese, an Irishman with my aqua-vitæ bottle, or a thief to walk my ambling gelding, than my wife with herself: then she plots, then she ruminates, then she devises; and what they think in their hearts they may effect they will break their hearts but they will effect. Heaven be praised for my jealousy!-Eleven o'clock the hour.—I will prevent this, detect my wife, be revenged on Falstaff, and laugh at Page. I will about it: better three hours too soon than a minute too late. Fie, fie, fie! cuckold! cuckold! cuckold! [Exit. SCENE III.-Field near Windsor. Enter CAIUS and RUGBY. CAIUS. Jack Rugby! RUG. Sir. CAIUS. Vat is de clock, Jack? RUG. "T is past the hour, sir, that sir Hugh promised to meet. CAIUS. By gar, he has save his soul, dat he is no come; he has pray his Pible vell, dat he is no come by gar, Jack Rugby, he is dead already if he be come. RUG. He is wise, sir; he knew your worship would kill him if he came. CAIUS. By gar, de herring is no dead so as I vill kill him. Take your rapier, Jack; I vill tell you how I vill kill him. RUG. Alas, sir, I cannot fence. Carus. Villainy, take your rapier. RUG. Forbear; here 's company. Enter HOST, SHALLOW, Slender, and Page. HOST. 'Bless thee, bully doctor. SHAL. Save you, master doctor Caius. PAGE. Now, good master doctor. SLEN. Give you good-morrow, sir. CAIUS. Vat be all you, one, two, tree, four, come for? HOST. To see thee fight, to see thee foin, to see thee traverse, to see thee here, SCENE III.] 107 MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. to see thee there; to see thee pass thy punto, thy stock, thy reverse, thy distance, thy montánt. Is he dead, my Ethiopian? is he dead, my Francisco? ha, bully! What says my Esculapius? my Galen? my heart of elder? ha! is he dead, bully Stale? is he dead? CAIUS. By gar, he is de coward Jack priest of de vorld; he is not show his face. HOST. Thou art a Castiliana, king Urinal! Hector of Greece, my boy! CAIUS. I pray you, bear vitness dat me have stay six or seven, two, tree hours for him, and he is no come. SHAL. He is the wiser man, master doctor: he is a curer of souls and you a curer of bodies; if you should fight, you go against the hair of your professions; is it not true, master Page? PAGE. Master Shallow, you have yourself been a great fighter, though now a man of peace. SHAL. Bodykins, master Page, though I now be old, and of the peace, if I see a sword out my finger itches to make one: though we are justices, and doctors, and churchmen, master Page, we have some salt of our youth in us; we are the sons of women, master Page. PAGE. 'Tis true, master Shallow. SHAL. It will be found so, master Page. Master doctor Caius, I am come to fetch you home. I am sworn of the peace; you have showed yourself a wise physician, and sir Hugh hath shown himself a wise and patient churchman : you must go with me, master doctor. HOST. Pardon, guest justice :-ah, monsieur Mock-water. CAIUS. Mock-vater! vat is dat? HOST. Mock-water, in our English tongue, is valour, bully. CAIUS. By gar, then I have as much mock-vater as de Englishman :-Scurvy jack-dog priest! by gar, me vill cut his ears. HOST. He will clapper-claw thee tightly, bully. CAIUS. Clapper-de-claw! vat is dat? HOST. That is, he will make thee amends. CAIUS. By gar, me do look he shall clapper-de-claw me; for, by gar, me vill have it. HOST. And I will provoke him to 't, or let him wag. CAIUS. Me tank you for dat. Host. And moreover, bully,—But first, master guest, and master Page, and eke cavalero Slender, go you through the town to Frogmore. PAGE. Sir Hugh is there, is he? [Aside to them. a Castilian. The Host ridicules the Doctor through his ignorance of English. He is a "heart of elder," the elder being filled with soft pith;-he is a Castilian, that name being an opprobrious designation for the Spaniards, whom the English of Elizabeth's time hated as much as their de- scendants were accustomed to hate the French. ↳ Mock-water. So the original; it was changed by Farmer to muck-water. Lord Chedworth suggests that, as the lustre of a diamond is called its water, mock-water may mean a counterfeit valour. Surely this is very daring. Mock-water, or muck-water, was some allusion to the profes- sion of Caius. 108 [ACT II. MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. HOST. He is there: see what humour he is in; and I will bring the doctor about by the fields: will it do well? SHAL. We will do it. PAGE, SHAL., and SLENDER. Adieu, good master doctor. [Exeunt PAGE, SHALLOW, and Slender. CAIUS. By gar, me vill kill de priest; for he speak for a jack-an-ape to Anne Page. HOST. Let him die: sheathe thy impatience; 'throw cold water on thy choler: go about the fields with me through Frogmore; I will bring thee where mistress Anne Page is, at a farm-house, a feasting: and thou shalt woo her Cried I aima? said I well? ; CAIUS. By gar, me tank you vor dat: by gar, I love you; and I shall procure-a you de good guest, de earl, de knight, de lords, de gentlemen, my patients. HOST. For the which I will be thy adversary toward Anne Page; said I well? CAIUS. By gar, 't is good; vell said. HOST. Let us wag then. CAIUS. Come at my heels, Jack Rugby. [Exeunt. a The folio reads, cried game. Warburton proposed to read cried aim. We adopt Mr. Dyce's reading of cried I aim?-i. e., did I give you encouragement? GRAY SC ["At a farm-house, a feasting."] * (N WIMPER ["Nay, keep your way, little gallant."] ACT III. SCENE I.-A Field near Frogmore. Enter Sir HUGH EVANS and SIMPLE. Eva. I pray you now, good master Slender's serving-man, and friend Simple by your name, which way have you looked for master Caius, that calls himself doctor of physic? SIM. Marry, sir, the pittie-warda, the park-ward, every way; old Windsor way, and every way but the town way. Eva. I most fehemently desire you, you will also look that way. SIM. I will, sir. EVA. Pless my soul! how full of cholers I am, and trempling of mind!—I shall be glad if he have deceived me :-how melancholies I am! I will knog his a Pittie-ward. Steevens changed this to city-ward, which he explains "towards London;”-as if Windsor were as near the city as Whitechapel. Pittie-ward is undoubtedly right, and is of the same import as petty-ward. A part of Windsor Castle is still called the lower ward, and in the same way another part might have been known as the park-ward. COMEDIES.--VOL. II. H 110 [АСТ III. MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. urinals about his knave's costard, when I have good opportunities for the 'ork-pless my soul! To shallow rivers, to whose falls [Sings. Melodious birds sing madrigals ; There will we make our peds of roses, And a thousand fragrant posies. To shallow- 'Mercy on me! I have a great dispositions to cry. Melodious birds sing madrigals : When as I sat in Pabylon,- And a thousand vagram posies. To shallow- SIM. Yonder he is coming, this way, sir Hugh. EVA. He's welcome: To shallow rivers, to whose falls 16 Heaven prosper the right!-What weapons is he? SIM. No weapons, sir: There comes my master, master Shallow, and another gentleman from Frogmore, over the stile, this way. EVA. Pray you, give me my gown; or else keep it in your arms. Enter PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER. SHAL. How now, master parson? Good morrow, good sir Hugh. Keep a gamester from the dice, and a good student from his book, and it is wonderful. SLEN. Ah, sweet Anne Page! PAGE. Save you, good sir Hugh ! Eva. Pless you from his mercy sake, all of you! SHAL. What! the sword and the word! do you study them both, master parson? PAGE. And youthful still, in your doublet and hose, this raw rheumatic day? EVA. There is reasons and causes for it. PAGE. We are come to you to do a good office, master parson. EVA. Fery well: What is it? PAGE. Yonder is a most reverend gentleman, who belike, having received wrong by some person, is at most odds with his own gravity and patience, that ever you saw. SHAL. I have lived fourscore years and upward; I never heard a man of his place, gravity, and learning, so wide of his own respect. EVA. What is he? PAGE. I think you know him; master doctor Caius, the renowned French physician. Eva. Got's will, and his passion of my heart! I had as lief you would tell me of a mess of porridge. PAGE. Why? Eva. He has no more knowledge in Hibocrates and Galen,—and he is a knave besides; a cowardly knave, as you would desires to be acquainted withal. SCENE I.] 111 MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. PAGE. I warrant you, he's the man should fight with him. SLEN. O, Sweet Anne Page! SHAL. It appears so, by his weapons:-Keep them asunder;-here comes doctor Caius. Enter HOST, CAIUS, and RUGBY, PAGE. Nay, good master parson, keep in your weapon. SHAL. So do you, good master doctor. HOST. Disarm them, and let them question; let them keep their limbs whole, and hack our English. CAIUS. I pray you let-a me speak a word vit your ear; Verefore vill you not meet-a me? EVA. Pray you, use your patience: in good time. CAIUS. By gar, you are de coward, de Jack dog, John ape. EVA. Pray you, let us not be laughing-stogs to other men's humours; I desire you in friendship, and I will one way or other make you amends :-I will knog your urinal about your knave's cogscomb [for missing your meetings and appointments a]. CAIUS. Diable!-Jack Rugby,-mine host de Jarterre, have I not stay for him, to kill him? have I not, at de place I did appoint? Eva. As I am a christians soul, now, look you, this is the place appointed; I'll be judgment by mine host of the Garter. HOST. Peace, I say, Guallia and Gaul; French and Welsh; soul-curer and body-curer. CAIUS. Ay, dat is very good! excellent! HOST. Peace, I say; hear mine host of the Garter. Am I politic? am I subtle? am I a Machiavel? Shall I lose my doctor? no; he gives me the potions, and the motions. Shall I lose my parson? my priest? my sir Hugh? no: he gives me the proverbs and the no-verbs.-[Give me thy hand, terrestrial; so: -Give me thy hand, celestial; so.Boys of art, I have deceived you both; I have directed you to wrong places; your hearts are mighty, your skins are whole, and let burnt sack be the issue.-Come, lay their swords to pawn :-Follow me, lad of peace; follow, follow, follow. SHAL. Trust me, a mad host:-Follow, gentlemen, follow. SLEN. O, Sweet Anne Page! [Exeunt SHALLOW, SLENDER, PAGE, and HOST. CAIUS. Ha! do I perceive dat? have you make-a de sot of us? ha, ha! EVA. This is well; he has made us his vlouting-stog.—I desire you that we may be friends; and let us knog our prains together, to be revenge on this same scalle, scurvy, cogging companion, the host of the Garter. a The passage in brackets is not in the folio, but in the quarto., It appears to have a necessary connection with the retort of Caius. b The passage in brackets is not in the folio, but is found in the quarto. The address of the Host to the doctor as terrestrial, and to the parson as celestial, is too humorous to be lost. • Scall-scald. Thus Fluellen, "scald knave." $ H 2 112 [ACT III. MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. CAIUS. By gar, vit all my heart; he promise to bring me vere is Anne Page; by gar, he deceive me too. EVA. Well, I will smite his noddles :-Pray you, follow. [Exeunt. SCENE II.-The Street in Windsor. Enter Mistress PAGE and ROBIN. MRS. PAGE. Nay, keep your way, little gallant; you were wont to be a follower, but now you are a leader: Whether had you rather, lead mine eyes, or eye your master's heels? Roв. I had rather, forsooth, go before you like a man, than follow him like a dwarf. MRS. PAGE. O you are a flattering boy; now, I see, you 'll be a courtier. Enter FORD. FORD. Well met, mistress Page: Whither go you? MRS. PAGE. Truly, sir, to see your wife; Is she at home? FORD. Ay; and as idle as she may hang together, for want of company. I think if your husbands were dead, you two would marry. MRS. PAGE. Be sure of that,-two other husbands. FORD. Where had you this pretty weathercock? MRS. PAGE. I cannot tell what the dickens his name is my husband had him of: What do you call your knight's name, sirrah? ROB. Sir John Falstaff. FORD. Sir John Falstaff! MRS. PAGE. He, he; I can never hit on 's name.-There is such a league between my good man and he!—Is your wife at home, indeed? FORD. Indeed, she is. MRS. PAGE. By your leave, sir :-I am sick, till I see her. [Exeunt MRS. PAGE and ROBIN. FORD. Has Page any brains? hath he any eyes? hath he any thinking? Sure, they sleep; he hath no use of them. Why, this boy will carry a letter twenty miles, as easy as a cannon will shoot point-blank twelve score. He pieces out his wife's inclination; he gives her folly motion and advantage: and now she's going to my wife, and Falstaff's boy with her. A man may hear this shower sing in the wind!—and Falstaff's boy with her!-Good plots!—they are laid; and our revolted wives share damnation together. Well; I will take him, then torture my wife, pluck the borrowed veil of modesty from the so seeming mistress Page, divulge Page himself for a secure and wilful Acteon; and to these violent proceedings all my neigh- bours shall cry aima. [Clock strikes.] The clock gives me my cue, and my assurance bids me search; There I shall find Falstaff: I shall be rather a Cry aim. See note to 'Two Gentlemen of Verona,' Act III., Scene 1. SCENE II.] 113 MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. praised for this than mocked; for it is as positive as the earth is firm that Falstaff is there: I will go. Enter PAGE, SHALLOW, SLENDER, HOST, Sir HUGH EVANS, CAIUS, and RUGBY. SHAL., PAGE, &c. Well met, master Ford. FORD. Trust me, a good knot: I have good cheer at home; and, I pray you all go with me. SHAL. I must excuse myself, master Ford. SLEN. And so must I, sir; we have appointed to dine with mistress Anne, and I would not break with her for more money than I 'll speak of. SHAL. We have lingered about a match between Anne Page and my cousin Slender, and this day we shall have our answer. SLEN. I hope I have your good will, father Page. PAGE. You have, master Slender; I stand wholly for you :-but my wife, mas- ter doctor, is for you altogether. CAIUS. Ay, by gar; and de maid is love-a me: my nursh-a Quickly tell me so mush. HOST. What say you to young master Fenton? he capers, he dances, he has eyes of youth, he writes verses, he speaks holiday a, he smells April and May: he will carry 't, he will carry 't; 't is in his buttons; he will carry 't. PAGE. Not by my consent, I promise you. The gentleman is of no having; he kept company with the wild Prince and Poins; he is of too high a region, he knows too much. No, he shall not knit a knot in his fortunes with the finger of my substance: if he take her, let him take her simply; the wealth I have waits on my consent, and my consent goes not that way. FORD. I beseech you, heartily, some of you go home with me to dinner: besides your cheer, you shall have sport; I will show you a monster.- Master doctor, you shall go;-so shall you, master Page;-and you, sir Hugh. SHAL. Well, fare you well :-we shall have the freer wooing at master Page's. [Exeunt SHALLOW and SLENDER. [Exit RUGBY. CAIUS. Go home, John Rugby; I come anon. HOST. Farewell, my hearts: I will to my honest knight Falstaff, and drink canary with him. FORD. [Aside.] I think I shall drink in pipe-wine first with him; I'll make him dance. Will you go, gentles? ALL. Have with you, to see this monster. a Holiday. Thus Hotspur,- "With many holiday and lady terms." [Exit HOST. [Exeunt. The general explanation is, that this is an allusion to the custom of wearing the flower called bachelor's buttons. But we are informed by a friend that a very similar phrase is common in the midland counties. "It does not lie in your breeches,"-meaning it is not within your compass:- "'t is in his buttons" therefore means,-he's the man to do it-his buttons hold the man. The phrase," 't is not in your breeches," is also known in London as an answer to a threat of per- sonal chastisement. с Pipe-wine. Ford will pipe while Falstaff dances. 114 [ACT III. MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. SCENE III.—A Room in Ford's House. Enter Mrs. FORD and Mrs. PAGE. MRS. FORD. What, John! What, Robert! MRS. PAGE. Quickly, quickly: Is the buck-basket— MRS. FORD. I warrant:-What, Robin, I say! Enter Servants, with a basket. MRS. PAGE. Come, come, come. MRS. FORD. Here, set it down. MRS. PAGE. Give your men the charge; we must be brief. MRS. FORD. Marry, as I told you before, John, and Robert, be ready here hard by in the brew-house; and when I suddenly call you, come forth, and (with- out any pause or staggering) take this basket on your shoulders: that done, trudge with it in all haste, and carry it among the whitsters a in Datchet mead, and there empty it in the muddy ditch, close by the Thames side. MRS. PAGE. You will do it? MRS. FORD. I have told them over and over; they lack no direction: Be gone, and come when you are called. MRS. PAGE. Here comes little Robin. [Exeunt Servants. Enter ROBIN. MRS. FORD. How now, my eyas-musket? what news with you? ROB. My master, sir John, is come in at your back-door, mistress Ford; and requests your company. MRS. PAGE. You little Jack-a-lent, have you been true to us? ROB. Ay, I'll be sworn: My master knows not of your being here; and hath threatened to put me into everlasting liberty if I tell you of it; for, he swears, he'll turn me away. MRS. PAGE. Thou 'rt a good boy; this secresy of thine shall be a tailor to thee, and shall make thee a new doublet and hose. I'll go hide me. MRS. FORD. Do so:-Go tell thy master, I am alone. Mistress Page, re- member you your cue. [Exit ROBIN. a Whitsters.-A launder is still called a whitster; but the whitsters of the Thames were pro- bably akin to the blanchisseuses of the Seine, and washed in the same fashion. b Eyas-musket. The musket is the small sparrow-hawk; the eyas is a general name for a very young hawk-the first of five several names by which a falcon is called in its first year. Spenser has a pretty image connected with the eyas:— C "Youthful gay, Like eyas-hawk up mounts into the skies, His newly-budded pinions to essay." Jack-a-lent. A puppet thrown at in Lent. Thus in Ben Jonson's Tale of a Tub:'- " on an Ash Wednesday, Where thou didst stand six weeks the Jack o' Lent For boys to hurl three throws a penny at thee." SCENE III.] 115 MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. MRS. PAGE. I warrant thee; if I do not act it, hiss me. [Exit Mrs. PAGE. MRS. FORD. Go to then; we'll use this unwholesome humidity, this gross watery pumpion. We'll teach him to know turtles from jays. Enter FALSTAFF. FAL. Have I caught thee, my heavenly jewela? Why, now let me die, for I have lived long enough; this is the period of my ambition. O this blessed hour! MRS. FORD. O sweet sir John! FAL. Mistress Ford, I cannot cog, I cannot prate, mistress Ford. Now shall I sin in my wish: I would thy husband were dead. I'll speak it before the best lord, I would make thee my lady. b MRS. FORD. I your lady, sir John! alas, I should be a pitiful lady. FAL. Let the court of France show me such another. I see how thine eye would emulate the diamond: Thou hast the right arched beauty of the brow, that becomes the ship-tire, the tire-valiant, or any tire of Venetian admittance. MRS. FORD. A plain kerchief, sir John: my brows become nothing else; nor that well neither. FAL. Thou art a tyrant to say so thou wouldst make an absolute courtier; and the firm fixture of thy foot would give an excellent motion to thy gait, in a semicircled farthingale. I see what thou wertd, if Fortune thy foe were not, Nature thy friend: Come, thou canst not hide it. MRS. FORD. Believe me, there's no such thing in me. FAL. What made me love thee? let that persuade thee there's something extraordinary in thee. Come, I cannot cog, and say thou art this and that, like a many of these lisping hawthorn-buds, that come like women in men's apparel, and smell like Bucklersbury in simple time¹7: I cannot: but I love thee; none but thee; and thou deservest it. 17 MRS. FORD. Do not betray me, sir. I fear you love mistress Page. FAL. Thou mightst as well say I love to walk by the Counter-gate; which is as hateful to me as the reek of a lime-kiln. MRS. FORD. Well, heaven knows how I love you; and you shall one day find it. FAL. Keep in that mind; I'll deserve it. MRS. FORD. Nay, I must tell you, so you do; or else I could not be in that mind. ROB. [within.] Mistress Ford, mistress Ford! here's mistress Page at the a "Have I caught my heavenly jewel" is the first line of a song in Sidney's 'Astrophel and Stella.' In the quarto the line stands without the thee of the present text. • Arched beauty. Thus the folio; the quarto, which the modern editors follow, has arched bent. Surely a bent arch is a term in which the epithet might be dispensed with. с Tyrant. So the folio; the quarto, traitor. d The passage in the folio stands thus: "I see what thou wert if Fortune thy foe, were not Nature thy friend." It is not found in the quarto. Upon Pope's correction the common reading "Fortune my is, "I see what thou wert, if Fortune thy foe were not; Nature is thy friend." foe" was the commencement of an old ballad. Mr. Collier and Mr. Dyce consider that being is understood after Nature. 116 [ACT III. MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. door, sweating, and blowing, and looking wildly, and would needs speak with you presently. FAL. She shall not see me; I will ensconce me behind the arras. MRS. FORD. Pray you, do so she's a very tattling woman. [FALSTAFF hides himself. Enter Mistress PAGE and ROBIN. What's the matter? how now? MRS. PAGE. O mistress Ford, what have you done? You're shamed, you're overthrown, you're undone for ever. MRS. FORD. What's the matter, good mistress Page? MRS. PAGE. O well-a-day, mistress Ford! having an honest man to your husband, to give him such cause of suspicion! MRS. FORD. What cause of suspicion? MRS. PAGE. What cause of suspicion?-Out upon you! how am I mistook in you! MRS. FORD. Why, alas! what's the matter? MRS. PAGE. Your husband's coming hither, woman, with all the officers in Windsor, to search for a gentleman that, he says, is here now in the house, by your consent, to take an ill advantage of his absence: You are undone. MRS. FORD. "T is not so, I hopeª. MRS. PAGE. Pray heaven it be not so, that you have such a man here; but 't is most certain your husband's coming with half Windsor at his heels to search for such a one. I come before to tell you. If you know yourself clear, why, I am glad of it: but if you have a friend here, convey, convey him out. Be not amazed; call all your senses to you; defend your reputa- tion, or bid farewell to your good life for ever. MRS. FORD. What shall I do?-There is a gentleman, my dear friend; and I fear not mine own shame so much as his peril: I had rather than a thousand pound he were out of the house. "" MRS. PAGE. For shame, never stand "you had rather,” and “ you had rather; your husband's here at hand: bethink you of some conveyance: in the house you cannot hide him.-O, how have you deceived me!-Look, here is a basket; if he be of any reasonable stature, he may creep in here; and throw foul linen upon him, as if it were going to bucking: Or, it is whiting- time, send him by your two men to Datchet mead. MRS. FORD. He's too big to go in there: What shall I do? Re-enter FALSTAFF. FAL. Let me see 't, let me see't! O let me see 't! I'll in, I'll in; follow your friend's counsel;-I'll in. a In the modern editions, Mrs. Ford says, before ""T is not so, I hope,"-" Speak louder,"- recovered by Steevens from "the two elder quartos." We have no hesitation in rejecting this restoration. In the second scene of the fourth Act, where Falstaff again hides himself upon the interruption of Mrs. Page, Mrs. Ford says, "Speak louder," which is not found in the two elder quartos. By such restorations as these, the care of the poet to avoid repetitions in the more skilful arrangement of his materials is rendered useless. SCENE III.] 117 MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. MRS. PAGE. What! FAL. I love theea. Sir John Falstaff! Are these your letters, knight? Help me away: let me creep in here; I'll never— [He goes into the basket; they cover him with foul linen. MRS. PAGE. Help to cover your master, boy: Call your men, mistress Ford :- You dissembling knight! MRS. FORD. What John, Robert, John! [Exit ROBIN. Re-enter Servants.] Go take up these clothes here, quickly; where's the cowl-staff b? look, how you drumble; carry them to the laundress in Datchet mead; quickly, come. Enter FORD, PAGE, CAIUS, and Sir HUGH EVANS. FORD. Pray you, come near: if I suspect without cause, why then make sport at me, then let me be your jest; I deserve it.—How now? whither bear you this? SERV. To the laundress, forsooth. MRS. FORD. Why, what have you to do whither they bear it? You were best meddle with buck-washing. FORD. Buck? I would I could wash myself of the buck! Buck, buck, buck? Ay, buck; I warrant you, buck; and of the season too, it shall appear. [Exeunt Servants with the basket.] Gentlemen, I have dreamed to-night; I'll tell you my dream. Here, here, here be my keys: ascend my chambers, search, seek, find out: I'll warrant we'll unkennel the fox :-Let me stop this way first:-so, now uncape. PAGE. Good master Ford, be contented: you wrong yourself too much. FORD. True, master Page.-Up, gentlemen; you shall see sport anon: follow me, gentlemen. EVA. This is fery fantastical humours and jealousies. CAIUS. By gar, 't is no de fashion of France: it is not jealous in France. PAGE. Nay, follow him, gentlemen; see the issue of his search. [Exit. [Exeunt EVANS, PAGE, and Caius. MRS. PAGE. Is there not a double excellency in this? MRS. FORD. I know not which pleases me better, that my husband is deceived, or sir John. MRS. PAGE. What a taking was he in, when your husband asked who was in the basket! MRS. FORD. I am half afraid he will have need of washing; so throwing him into the water will do him a benefit. MRS. PAGE. Hang him, dishonest rascal! I would all of the same strain were in the same distress. MRS. FORD. I think my husband hath some special suspicion of Falstaff's being here; for I never saw him so gross in his jealousy till now. MRS. PAGE. I will lay a plot to try that: And we will yet have more tricks with Falstaff: his dissolute disease will scarce obey this medicine. "" a Another restoration from the quarto:-" I love thee, and none but thee.' A cowl-staff is explained to be a staff used for carrying a basket with two handles. 118 [ACT III. MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. MRS. FORD. Shall we send that foolish carrion, mistress Quickly, to him, and excuse his throwing into the water; and give him another hope, to betray him to another punishment? MRS. PAGE. We will do it; let him be sent for to-morrow eight o'clock, to have amends. Re-enter FORD, PAGE, Caius, and Sir HUGH Evans. FORD. I cannot find him: may be the knave bragged of that he could not compass. MRS. PAGE. Heard you that? MRS. FORD. You use me well, master Ford, do you a? FORD. Ay, I do so. MRS. FORD. Heaven make you better than your thoughts! FORD. Amen. MRS. PAGE. You do yourself mighty wrong, master Ford. FORD. Ay, ay; I must bear it. EVA. If there be any pody in the house, and in the chambers, and in the coffers, and in the presses, heaven forgive my sins at the day of judgment! CAIUS. By gar, nor I too; dere is no bodies. PAGE. Fie, fie, master Ford! are you not ashamed? What spirit, what devil suggests this imagination? I would not have your distemper in this kind, for the wealth of Windsor Castle. FORD. 'Tis my fault, master Page: I suffer for it. Eva. You suffer for a pad conscience: your wife is as honest a 'omans as I will desires among five thousand, and five hundred too. CAIUS. By gar, I see 't is an honest woman. FORD. Well;-I promised you a dinner:-Come, come, walk in the park: I pray you, pardon me; I will hereafter make known to you why I have done this.-Come, wife;-come, mistress Page; I pray you, pardon me; pray heartily, pardon me. PAGE. Let's go in, gentlemen; but, trust me, we 'll mock him. I do invite you to-morrow morning to my house to breakfast: after, we'll a-birding together; I have a fine hawk for the bush: Shall it be so? FORD. Anything. EVA. If there is one, I shall make two in the company. CAIUS. If there be one or two, I shall make-a de tird. FORD. Pray you go, master Page. EVA. I pray you now, remembrance to-morrow on the lousy knave, mine host. CAIUS. Dat is good; by gar, vit all my heart. EVA. A lousy knave; to have his gibes and his mockeries. [Exeunt. a In the quartos, Mrs. Ford holds no dialogue with her husband; and yet the editors make a merit of having recovered “Ay, ay, peace," to prefix to this sentence. They are not very careful as to the quality of what they recover. In this scene they have fished up a line out of the refuse thrown aside by the poet, which even Steevens calls "a dirty restoration." SCENE IV.] 119 MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. K SCENE IV.—A Room in Page's Houseª. Enter FENTON and Mistress ANNE PAGE. FENT. I see I cannot get thy father's love; Therefore no more turn me to him, sweet Nan. ANNE. Alas! how then? FENT. Why, thou must be thyself. He doth object, I am too great of birth; And that, my state being gall'd with my expense, I seek to heal it only by his wealth: Besides these, other bars he lays before me,- My riots past, my wild societies; And tells me, 't is a thing impossible I should love thee, but as a property. ANNE. May be, he tells you true. FENT. No, heaven so speed me in my time to come! Albeit, I will confess thy father's wealth Was the first motive that I woo'd thee, Anne: Yet, wooing thee, I found thee of more value Than stamps in gold, or sums in sealed bags; And 't is the very riches of thyself That now I aim at. ANNE. Gentle master Fenton, Yet seek my father's love; still seek it, sir : If opportunity and humblest suit Cannot attain it, why then-Hark you hither. [They converse apart. Enter SHALLOW, SLENDER, and Mrs. QUICKLY. SHAL. Break their talk, mistress Quickly; my kinsman shall speak for himself. SLEN. I'll make a shaft or a bolt on 't: slid, 't is but venturing. SHAL. Be not dismayed. SLEN. No, she shall not dismay me: I care not for that,—but that I am afeard. QUICK. Hark ye; master Slender would speak a word with you. ANNE. I come to him.-This is my father's choice. O, what a world of vile ill-favoured faults Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a year! QUICK. And how does good master Fenton? Pray you, a word with you. SHAL. She's coming; to her, coz. O boy, thou hadst a father! [Aside. SLEN. I had a father, mistress Anne;-my uncle can tell you good jests of him:-Pray you, uncle, tell mistress Anne the jest, how my father stole two geese out of a pen, good uncle. a Scene IV. In the quartos, this scene, although much shorter than in the folio, follows the fifth scene, where Falstaff relates his Thames adventure. The skill of the dramatist is shown in the interposition of an episode between the beginning and end of the catastrophe of the buck- basket. 120 [ACT III. MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. SHAL. Mistress Anne, my cousin loves you. SLEN. Ay, that I do; as well as I love any woman in Glostershire. SHAL. He will maintain you like a gentlewoman. SLEN. Ay, that I will, come cut and long-tailª, under the degree of a 'squire. SHAL. He will make you a hundred and fifty pounds jointure. ANNE. Good master Shallow, let him woo for himself. SHAL. Marry, I thank you for it; I thank you for that good comfort. She calls you, coz: I'll leave you. ANNE. Now, master Slender. SLEN. Now, good mistress Anne. ANNE. What is your will? SLEN. My will? 'od's heartlings, that's a pretty jest, indeed! I ne'er made my will yet, I thank heaven; I am not such a sickly creature, I give heaven praise. ANNE. I mean, master Slender, what would you with me? SLEN. Truly, for mine own part, I would little or nothing with you: Your father, and my uncle, have made motions: if it be my luck, so if not, happy man be his dole! They can tell you how things go better than I can : You may ask your father; here he comes. Enter PAGE and Mistress PAGE. PAGE. Now, master Slender :-Love him, daughter Anne.- Why, how now! what does master Fenton here? You wrong me, sir, thus still to haunt my house: I told you, sir, my daughter is dispos'd of. FENT. Nay, master Page, be not impatient. MRS. PAGE. Good master Fenton, come not to my child. PAGE. She is no match for you. FENT. Sir, will you hear me? PAGE. No, good master Fenton. Come, master Shallow; come, son Slender, in :— Knowing my mind, you wrong me, master Fenton. QUICK. Speak to mistress Page. [Exeunt PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER. FENT. Good mistress Page, for that I love your daughter In such a righteous fashion as I do, Perforce, against all checks, rebukes, and manners, I must advance the colours of my love, And not retire: Let me have your good will. ANNE. Good mother, do not marry me to yond' fool. a Cut and long-tail. The commentators give us a world of dissertation to prove, and to dis- prove, that unlawful dogs had their tails cut by the forest-laws; and it seems to be settled that such dogs were only maimed on the fore-foot. Come cut and long-tail appears to mean, come people of all degrees-long-tail as opposed to bob-tail, a member of the worshipful firm of Tag, Rag, and Co. SCENE V.] 121 MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. MRS. PAGE. I mean it not; I seek you a better husband. QUICK. That's my master, master doctor. ANNE. Alas, I had rather be set quick i' the earth, And bowl'd to death with turnips a. MRS. PAGE. Come, trouble not yourself: Good master Fenton, I will not be your friend, nor enemy: My daughter will I question how she loves you, And as I find her, so am I affected; Till then, farewell, sir:-She must needs go in ; Her father will be angry. FENT. Farewell, gentle mistress: farewell, Nan. [Exeunt Mrs. PAGE and ANNE. QUICK. This is my doing now.-Nay, said I, will you cast away your child on a fool, and a physician? Look on master Fenton :-this is my doing. FENT. I thank thee; and I pray thee, once to-night, Give my sweet Nan this ring: There 's for thy pains. [Exit. QUICK. Now heaven send thee good fortune! A kind heart he hath: a woman would run through fire and water for such a kind heart. But yet, I would my master had mistress Anne; or I would master Slender had her; or, in sooth, I would master Fenton had her: I will do what I can for them all three; for so I have promised, and I'll be as good as my word; but speciously for master Fenton. Well, I must of another errand to sir John Falstaff from my two mistresses. What a beast am I to slack it! [Exit. SCENE V.-A Room in the Garter Inn. FAL. Bardolph, I say,- BARD. Here, sir. Enter FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH. FAL. Go fetch me a quart of sack; put a toast in 't. [Exit BARDOLPH.] Have I lived to be carried in a basket, like a barrow of butcher's offal; and to be thrown in the Thames? Well, if I be served such another trick, I 'll have my brains ta'en out, and buttered, and give them to a dog for a new year's gift. The rogues slighted me into the river with as little remorse as they would have drowned a bitch's blind puppies, fifteen i' the litter and you may know by my size that I have a kind of alacrity in sinking; if the bottom were as deep as hell, I should down. I had been drowned but that the shore was shelvy and shallow,-a death that I abhor; for the water C a It is said that this is a proverb in the southern counties. We never heard it. In Ben Jonson's 'Bartholomew Fair' there is a similar notion: "Would I had been set in the ground, all but the head of me, and had my brains bowled at.” The refined cruelties of Oriental despotism suggested the punishment of burying an offender in this manner. Sir Thomas Roe, in his 'Voyage to the East Indies,' tells a story of the Mogul murdering one of his women in this barbarous fashion. The fool was Slender, patronised by Master Page; the physician, Dr. Caius, whose suit Mis- tress Page favoured. • The folio, as well as the quarto, has—" a blind bitch's puppies." 122 [ACT III. MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. swells a man; and what a thing should I have been when I had been swelled! I should have been a mountain of mummy. Re-enter BARDOLPH with the wine. BARD. Here's mistress Quickly, sir, to speak with you. FAL. Come, let me pour in some sack to the Thames water; for my belly 's as cold as if I had swallowed snowballs for pills to cool the reins. Call her in. BARD. Come in, woman. Enter Mrs. QUICKLY. QUICK. By your leave; I cry you mercy: Give your worship good morrow. FAL. Take away these chalices: Go, brew me a pottle of sack finely. BARD. With eggs, sir? FAL. Simple of itself; I'll no pullet-sperm in my brewage.-[Exit BARDOLPH.] -How now? QUICK. Marry, sir, I came to your worship from mistress Ford. FAL. Mistress Ford! I have had ford enough: I was thrown into the ford: I have my belly full of ford. QUICK. Alas the day! good heart, that was not her fault: she does so take on with her men; they mistook their erection. FAL. So did I mine, to build upon a foolish woman's promise. QUICK. Well, she laments, sir, for it, that it would yearn your heart to see it. Her husband goes this morning a-birding: she desires you once more to come to her between eight and nine. I must carry her word quickly: she'll make you amends, I warrant you. FAL. Well, I will visit her: Tell her so; and bid her think what a man is: let her consider his frailty, and then judge of my merit. QUICK. I will tell her. FAL. DO SO. Between nine and ten, say'st thou? QUICK. Eight and nine, sir. FAL. Well, be gone: I will not miss her. QUICK. Peace be with you, sir. [Exit. FAL. I marvel I hear not of master Brook; he sent me word to stay within: I like his money well. O here he comes. FORD. Bless you, sir! Enter FORD. FAL. Now, master Brook? you come to know what hath passed between me and Ford's wife. FORD. That, indeed, sir John, is my business. FAL. Master Brook, I will not lie to you: I was at her house the hour she appointed me. FORD. And sped a you, sir? a Sped you. Malone would read how sped you? But sped you does not require the addition. SCENE V.] 123 MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. FAL. Very ill-favouredly, master Brook. FORD. How so, sir? Did she change her determination? FAL. No, master Brook; but the peaking cornuto her husband, master Brook, dwelling in a continual 'larum of jealousy, comes me in the instant of our encounter, after we had embraced, kissed, protested, and, as it were, spoke the' prologue of our comedy; and at his heels a rabble of his companions, thither provoked and instigated by his distemper, and forsooth, to search his house for his wife's love. FORD. What, while you were there? FAL. While I was there. FORD. And did he search for you and could not find you? FAL. You shall hear. As good luck would have it comes in one mistress Page; gives intelligence of Ford's approach; and, in her invention and Ford's wife's distraction, they conveyed me into a buck-basket. FORD. A buck-basket? FAL. Yes, a buck-basket: rammed me in with foul shirts and smocks, socks, foul stockings, greasy napkins; that, master Brook, there was the rankest compound of villainous smell that ever offended nostril. FORD. And how long lay you there? : FAL. Nay, you shall hear, master Brook, what I have suffered to bring this woman to evil for your good. Being thus crammed in the basket, a couple of Ford's knaves, his hinds, were called forth by their mistress, to carry me in the name of foul clothes to Datchet-lane: they took me on their shoulders; met the jealous knave their master in the door; who asked them once or twice what they had in their basket: I quaked for fear, lest the lunatic knave would have searched it; but fate, ordaining he should be a cuckold, held his hand. Well on went he for a search, and away went I for foul clothes. But mark the sequel, master Brook: I suffered the pangs of three several deaths: first, an intolerable fright, to be detected with a jealous rotten bell-wether: next, to be compassed, like a good bilbo, in the circum- ference of a peck, hilt to point, heel to head: and then, to be stopped in, like a strong distillation, with stinking clothes that fretted in their own grease: think of that,—a man of my kidney,-think of that; that am as subject to heat as butter; a man of continual dissolution and thaw; it was a miracle to 'scape suffocation. And in the height of this bath, when I was more than half stewed in grease, like a Dutch dish, to be thrown into the Thames, and cooled, glowing hot, in that surge, like a horse-shoe; think of that, hissing hot,-think of that, master Brook. FORD. In good sadness, sir, I am sorry that for my sake you have suffered all this. My suit then is desperate; you 'll undertake her no more. FAL. Master Brook, I will be thrown into Etna, as I have been thrown into Thames, ere I will leave her thus. Her husband is this morning gone a-birding: I have received from her another embassy of meeting; 'twixt eight and nine is the hour, master Brook. FORD. 'T is past eight already, sir. 124 [ACT III. MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. FAL. Is it? I will then address me to my appointment. Come to me at your convenient leisure, and you shall know how I speed; and the conclusion shall be crowned with your enjoying her: Adieu. You shall have her, master Brook; master Brook, you shall cuckold Ford. [Exit. FORD. Hum! ha! is this a vision? is this a dream? do I sleep? Master Ford, awake; awake, master Ford; there's a hole made in your best coat, master Ford. This 't is to be married! this 't is to have linen and buck-baskets! Well, I will proclaim myself what I am: I will now take the lecher; he is at my house; he cannot 'scape me; 't is impossible he should; he cannot creep into a halfpenny purse, nor into a pepper box; but, lest the devil that guides him should aid him, I will search impossible places. Though what I am I cannot avoid, yet to be what I would not shall not make me tame: If I have horns to make mea mad, let the proverb go with me; I'll be horn mad. a Me. In the folio, one. We adopt Mr. Dyce's correction. [Exit. WHIMPEA ["The rogues slighted me into the river." ] ["Out of my door, you witch."] GRAY SE. ACT IV. SCENE I.-The Street. Enter Mrs. PAGE, Mrs. QUICKLY, and WILLIAM. MRS. PAGE. Is he at master Ford's already, think'st thou? QUICK. Sure he is by this; or will be presently: but truly he is very courageous. mad, about his throwing into the water. Mistress Ford desires you to come suddenly. MRS. PAGE. I'll be with her by-and-by; I'll but bring my young man here to school. Look, where his master comes; 't is a playing day, I see. Enter Sir HUGH EVANS. How now, sir Hugh? no school to-day? EVA. No; master Slender is let the boys leave to play. COMEDIES.-VOL. II. I 126 [ACT IV. MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. QUICK. Blessing of his heart! MRS. PAGE. Sir Hugh, my husband says my son profits nothing in the world at his book. I pray you, ask him some questions in his accidence. EVA. Come hither, William; hold up your head; come. MRS. PAGE. Come on, sirrah: hold up your head; answer your master, be not afraid. EVA. William, how many numbers is in nouns ? WILL. TWO. QUICK. Truly, I thought there had been one number more; because they say, od's nouns. EVA. Peace your tattlings. What is fair, William? WILL. Pulcher. QUICK. Polecats! there are fairer things than polecats, sure. EVA. You are a very simplicity 'oman; I pray you, peace. William? WILL. A stone. EVA. And what is a stone, William? WILL. A pebble. EVA. No, it is lapis; I pray you remember in your prain. WILL. Lapis. What is lapis, EVA. That is a good William. What is he, William, that does lend articles? WILL. Articles are borrowed of the pronoun; and be thus declined, Singulariter, nominativo, hic, hæc, hoc. Eva. Nominativo, hig, hag, hog;-pray you, mark: genitivo, hujus: Well, what is your accusative case? WILL. Accusativo, hinc. EVA. I pray you, have your remembrance, child; Accusativo, hing, hang, hog. QUICK. Hang hog is Latin for bacon, I warrant you ª. EVA. Leave your prabbles, 'oman. What is the focative case, William ? WILL. O-vocativo, O. EVA. Remember, William, focative is, caret. QUICK. And that 's a good root. EVA. 'Oman, forbear. MRS. PAGE. Peace. EVA. What is your genitive case plural, William? WILL. Genitive case? Eva. Ay. WILL. Genitive,-horum, harum, horum. a Hang hog, &c. This joke is in all probability derived from the traditionary anecdote of Sir Nicholas Bacon, which is told by Lord Bacon in his 'Apophthegms:' "Sir Nicholas Bacon, being judge of the Northern Circuit, when he came to pass sentence upon the malefactors, was by one of them mightily importuned to save his life. When nothing he had said would avail, he at length desired his mercy on account of kindred. Prithee, said my lord, how came that in? Why, if it please you, my lord, your name is Bacon and mine is Hog, and in all ages Hog and Bacon are so near kindred that they are not to be separated. Ay, but, replied the judge, you and I cannot be of kindred unless you be hanged; for Hog is not Bacon till it be well hanged.” SCENE II.] 127 MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. QUICK. 'Vengeance of Jenny's case! fie on her!—never name her, child, if she be a whore. EVA. For shame, 'oman. QUICK. You do ill to teach the child such words: he teaches him to hick and to hack, which they'll do fast enough of themselves, and to call horum:-fie upon you! EVA. 'Oman, art thou lunatics? hast thou no understandings for thy cases, and the numbers of the genders? Thou art as foolish christian creatures as I would desires. MRS. PAGE. Prithee, hold thy peace. EVA. Show me now, William, some declensions of your pronouns. WILL. Forsooth, I have forgot. EVA. It is qui, quæ, quod; if you forget your quies, your quæs, and your quods, you must be preeches. Go your ways, and play, go. MRS. PAGE. He is a better scholar than I thought he was. EVA. He is a good sprag a memory. MRS. PAGE. Adieu, good sir Hugh. Come, we stay too long. Farewell, mistress Page. [Exit Sir HUGH.] Get you home, boy.- [Exeunt. SCENE II.-A Room in Ford's House. Enter FALSTAFF and Mrs. FORD. FAL. Mistress Ford, your sorrow hath eaten up my sufferance: I see you are obsequious in your love, and I profess requital to a hair's breadth; not only, mistress Ford, in the simple office of love, but in all the accoutrement, com- plement, and ceremony of it. But are you sure of your husband now? MRS. FORD. He's a birding, sweet sir John. MRS. PAGE. [Within.] What hoa, gossip Ford! what hoa! MRS. FORD. Step into the chamber, sir John. Enter Mrs. PAGE. [Exit FALSTAFF. MRS. PAGE. How now, sweetheart? who 's at home beside yourself? MRS. FORD. Why, none but mine own people. MRS. PAGE. Indeed? MRS. FORD. No, certainly ;-Speak louder. [Aside. MRS. PAGE. Truly, I am so glad you have nobody here. MRS. FORD. Why? b MRS. PAGE. Why, woman, your husband is in his old lines again: he so takes a L on yonder with my husband; so rails against all married mankind; so curses Sprag-quick. Lines. So the folio. The quarto reads, "his old vein again." Theobald changed lines to lunes, which is the received reading. Old lines appears to us the same as old courses, old hu- mours, old vein. I 2 128 [ACT IV. MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. all Eve's daughters, of what complexion soever; and so buffets himself on the forehead, crying "Peer-out, peer-out!" that any madness I ever yet beheld seemed but tameness, civility, and patience, to this his distemper he is in now; I am glad the fat knight is not here. MRS. FORD. Why, does he talk of him? MRS. PAGE. Of none but him; and swears he was carried out, the last time he searched for him, in a basket: protests to my husband he is now here; and hath drawn him and the rest of their company from their sport, to make another experiment of his suspicion; but I am glad the knight is not here: now he shall see his own foolery. MRS. FORD. How near is he, mistress Page? MRS. PAGE. Hard by; at street end; he will be here anon. MRS. FORD. I am undone !-the knight is here. MRS. PAGE. Why, then you are utterly shamed, and he's but a dead man. What a woman are you!-Away with him, away with him; better shame than murder. MRS. FORD. Which way should he go? how should I bestow him? Shall I put him into the basket again? Re-enter FALSTAFF. FAL. No, I'll come no more i' the basket: May I not go out ere he come? MRS. PAGE. Alas, three of master Ford's brothers watch the door with pistols, that none shall issue out; otherwise you might slip away ere he came. what make you here? FAL. What shall I do ?—I'll creep up into the chimney. But MRS. FORD. There they always use to discharge their birding-pieces: Creep into the kiln-hole. FAL. Where is it? MRS. FORD. He will seek there, on my word. Neither press, coffer, chest, trunk, well, vault, but he hath an abstract for the remembrance of such places, and goes to them by his note: There is no hiding you in the house. FAL. I'll go out then. MRS. PAGE. If you go out in your own semblance, you die, sir John. Unless you go out disguised,— MRS. FORD. How might we disguise him? MRS. PAGE. Alas the day, I know not. There is no woman's gown big enough for him; otherwise he might put on a hat, a muffler, and a kerchief, and so escape. FAL. Good hearts, devise something: any extremity, rather than a mischief. MRS. FORD. My maid's aunt, the fat woman of Brentford, has a gown above. MRS. PAGE. On my word, it will serve him; she's as big as he is: and there's her thrumm'd hat, and her muffler too: Run up, sir John. MRS. FORD. Go, go, sweet sir John: mistress Page and I will look some linen for your head. SCENE II.] 129 MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. MRS. PAGE. Quick, quick; we 'll come dress you straight: put on the gown the while. [Exit FALSTAFF. MRS. FORD. I would my husband would meet him in this shape: he cannot abide the old woman of Brentford; he swears she's a witch; forbade her my house, and hath threatened to beat her. MRS. PAGE. Heaven guide him to thy husband's cudgel; and the devil guide his cudgel afterwards! MRS. FORD. But is my husband coming? MRS. PAGE. Ay, in good sadness, is he; and talks of the basket too, howsoever he hath had intelligence. MRS. FORD. We'll try that; for I 'll appoint my men to carry the basket again, to meet him at the door with it, as they did last time. MRS. PAGE. Nay, but he 'll be here presently: let's go dress him like the witch of Brentford. MRS. FORD. I'll first direct my men what they shall do with the basket. Go up, I'll bring linen for him straight. [Exit. MRS. PAGE. Hang him, dishonest varlet! we cannot misuse him enough ª. We 'll leave a proof, by that which we will do, Wives may be merry and yet honest too: We do not act that often jest and laugh ; "T is old but true, Still swine eat all the draff. Re-enter Mrs. FORD, with two Servants. [Exit. MRS. FORD. Go, sirs, take the basket again on your shoulders; your master is hard at door; if he bid you set it down, obey him: quickly, despatch. 1 SERV. Come, come, take it up. [Exit. 2 SERV. Pray heaven it be not full of knight again b. 1 SERV. I hope not; I had as lief bear so much lead. Enter FORD, PAGE, SHALLOW, CAIUS, and Sir HUGH EVANS. Somebody call my wife :—Youth FORD. Ay, but if it prove true, master Page, have you any way then to unfool me again?-Set down the basket, villain : in a basketº!—O, you panderly rascals! there's a knot, a ging ª, a pack, a d a The folio of 1623 reads "misuse enough." The second folio inserted him-"we cannot misuse him enough;"-which is the received reading. Malone says him was accidentally omitted. b Full of knight. So the folio of 1623. The second folio has "full of the knight,” which is the received reading. The article destroys the wit. The Servant uses knight as he would say lead. • We print the speech as in the folio,-and, if properly read, it most vividly presents the in- coherent and abrupt mode in which a mind overwrought by passion expresses its thoughts. Ford exclaims, "Somebody call my wife:" he then cries out to the supposed disturber of his peace- "Youth in a basket"—and instantly turns upon the people of his household with reproaches. Malone found come out here" in the old quarto, and foisted it in after "Youth in a basket;" whereas "O you panderly rascals" to "What, wife! I say," is parenthetical; and "Come, come forth" is addressed to the "youth in a basket,” and not to Mistress Ford. a Ging-gang. 130 [ACT IV. MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. conspiracy against me: Now shall the devil be shamed. What! wife, I say!-Come, come forth. Behold what honest clothes you send forth to bleaching. PAGE. Why, this passes! Master Ford, you are not to go loose any longer; you must be pinioned. EVA. Why, this is lunatics! this is mad as a mad dog! SHAL. Indeed, master Ford, this is not well; indeed. Enter Mrs. FORD. FORD. So say I too, sir.-Come hither, mistress Ford; mistress Ford, the honest woman, the modest wife, the virtuous creature, that hath the jealous fool to her husband!-I suspect without cause, mistress, do I? MRS. FORD. Heaven be my witness you do, if you suspect me of any dishonesty. FORD. Well said, brazen-face; hold it out. -Come forth, sirrah. PAGE. This passes! [Pulls the clothes out of the basket. MRS. FORD. Are you not ashamed? let the clothes alone. FORD. I shall find you anon. Eva. 'T is unreasonable! Will you take up your wife's clothes? Come away. FORD. Empty the basket, I say. MRS. FORD. Why, man, why? FORD. Master Page, as I am a man, there was one conveyed out of my house yesterday in this basket: Why may not he be there again? In my house : I am sure he is my intelligence is true; my jealousy is reasonable: Pluck me out all the linen. MRS. FORD. If you find a man there, he shall die a flea's death. PAGE. Here 's no man. SHAL. By my fidelity, this is not well, master Ford; this wrongs you. EVA. Master Ford, you must pray, and not follow the imaginations of your own heart: this is jealousies. FORD. Well, he 's not here I seek for. PAGE. No, nor nowhere else, but in your brain. FORD. Help to search my house this one time: If I find not what I seek, show no colour for my extremity, let me for ever be your table-sport; let them say of me, As jealous as Ford, that searched a hollow walnut for his wife's leman. Satisfy me once more; once more search with me. MRS. FORD. What hoa, mistress Page! come you, and the old woman, down; my husband will come into the chamber. FORD. Old woman! what old woman's that? MRS. FORD. Why, it is my maid's aunt of Brentford. FORD. A witch, a quean, an old cozening quean! Have I not forbid her my house? She comes of errands, does she? We are simple men; we do not know what's brought to pass under the profession of fortune-telling. She works by charms, by spells, by the figure, and such daubery as this is; SCENE II.] 131 MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. beyond our element: We know nothing.-Come down, you witch, you hag you; come down, I say. MRS. FORD. Nay, good, sweet husband;-good gentlemen, let him not strike a the old woman. Enter FALSTAFF in women's clothes, led by Mrs. PAGE. MRS. PAGE. Come, mother Prat, come, give me your hand. I'll conjure you, I'll [Exit FALSTAFF. FORD. I'll prat her:-out of my door, you witch, [beats him,] you rag, you baggage, you polecat, you ronyon! out! out! fortune-tell you. MRS. PAGE. Are you not ashamed? I think you have killed the poor woman. MRS. FORD. Nay, he will do it:-"T is a goodly credit for you. FORD. Hang her, witch! EVA. By yea and no, I think, the 'oman is a witch indeed: I like not when a 'oman has a great peard; I spy a great peard under her muffler 18. FORD. Will you follow, gentlemen? I beseech you, follow; see but the issue of my jealousy if I cry out thus upon no trail, never trust me when I open again. PAGE. Let's obey his humour a little further: Come, gentlemen. [Exeunt PAGE, FORD, SHALLOW, and EVANS. MRS. PAGE. Trust me, he beat him most pitifully. MRS. FORD. Nay, by the mass, that he did not; he beat him most unpitifully, methought. MRS. PAGE. I'll have the cudgel hallowed and hung o'er the altar; it hath done meritorious service. MRS. FORD. What think you? May we, with the warrant of womanhood, and the witness of a good conscience, pursue him with any further revenge? MRS. PAGE. The spirit of wantonness is, sure, scared out of him; if the devil have him not in fee-simple, with fine and recovery, he will never, I think, in the way of waste, attempt us again. MRS. FORD. Shall we tell our husbands how we have served him? MRS. PAGE. Yes, by all means; if it be but to scrape the figures out of your husband's brains. If they can find in their hearts the poor unvirtuous fat knight, shall be any further afflicted, we two will still be the ministers. MRS. FORD. I'll warrant they 'll have him publicly shamed; and, methinks, there would be no period to the jeste, should he not be publicly shamed. "L a The folio has "let him strike,"-using, probably, let in the sense of prevent. This is one of the many examples of Shakspere's legal knowledge. He certainly knew much more of law than his commentators. Ritson, upon this passage, says, fee-simple is the largest estate, and fine and recovery the strongest assurance, known to English law." Surely the passage means that the devil had Falstaff as an entire estate, with the power of barring entail—of dis- posing of him according to his own desire;-as absolute a power as any self-willed person, such as the devil is said to be, could wish. • No period to the jest-we should have to keep on the jest in other forms, unless his public shame concluded it. There would be no end to the jest. 132 [ACT IV. MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. MRS. PAGE. Come, to the forge with it then, shape it: I would not have things cool. [Exeunt. SCENE III.—A Room in the Garter Inn. Enter Host and BARDOLPH. BARD. Sir, the Germans desire to have three of your horses: the duke himself will be to-morrow at court, and they are going to meet him. HOST. What duke should that be comes so secretly? I hear not of him in the court: Let me speak with the gentlemen; they speak English? BARD. Ay, sir; I'll call them to you. Host. They shall have my horses; but I'll make them pay, I'll sauce them: they have had my houses a week at command; I have turned away my other guests: they must come off; I'll sauce them: Come. [Exeunt. SCENE IV.—A Room in Ford's House. Enter PAGE, FORD, Mrs. PAGE, Mrs. FORD, and Sir HUGH Evans. EVA. "T is one of the pest discretions of a 'oman as ever I did look upon. PAGE. And did he send you both these letters at an instant? MRS. PAGE. Within a quarter of an hour. FORD. Pardon me, wife: Henceforth do what thou wilt; I rather will suspect the sun with cold a Than thee with wantonness: now doth thy honour stand, In him that was of late an heretic, As firm as faith. PAGE. 'Tis well, 't is well; no more: Be not as extreme in submission As in offence; But let our plot go forward: let our wives Yet once again, to make us public sport, Appoint a meeting with this old fat fellow, Where we may take him, and disgrace him for it. FORD. There is no better way than that they spoke of. PAGE. How! to send him word they 'll meet him in the park at midnight? Fie, fie; he 'll never come. EVA. You say, he has been thrown in the rivers; and has been grievously peaten, as an old 'oman; methinks, there should be terrors in him that he a Cold. The folio reads gold. Rowe changed the word to cold, which is perhaps the true read- ing. To suspect the sun with gold may mean to suspect the sun of being corrupted with gold; yet with cold (of cold) is more properly in apposition with wantonness (of wantonness). SCENE IV.] 133 MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. should not come; methinks, his flesh is punished, he shall have no de- sires. PAGE. So think I too. MRS. FORD. Devise but how you 'll use him when he comes, And let us two devise to bring him thither. MRS. PAGE. There is an old tale goes, that Herne the hunter, Sometime a keeper here in Windsor forest, Doth all the winter-time, at still midnight, Walk round about an oak, with great ragg'd horns; And there he blasts the tree, and takes a the cattle; And makes milch-kine yield blood, and shakes a chain In a most hideous and dreadful manner: You have heard of such a spirit; and well you know, The superstitious idle-headed eld Receiv'd, and did deliver to our age, This tale of Herne the hunter for a truth. PAGE. Why, yet there want not many that do fear In deep of night to walk by this Herne's oak: But what of this? MRS. FORD. Marry, this is our device; That Falstaff at that oak shall meet with us, [Disguis'd like Herne, with huge horns on his head. b] PAGE. Well, let it not be doubted but he 'll come, And in this shape: When you have brought him thither, What shall be done with him? what is your plot? MRS. PAGE. That likewise have we thought upon, and thus: Nan Page my daughter, and my little son, And three or four more of their growth, we 'll dress Like urchins, ouphes, and fairies, green and white, a Takes-seizes with disease. As in Lear,'- "Strike her young bones, Ye taking airs." This line is not in the folio; but it is certainly wanting. The passage in the quarto in which this line occurs is a remarkable example of the care with which the first sketch has been im- proved:- Ouphes-goblins. "Hear my device. Oft have you heard since Horne the hunter died, That women to affright their little children Say that he walks in shape of a great stag. Now, for that Falstaff hath been so deceiv'd As that he dares not venture to the house, We 'll send him word to meet us in the field, Disguis'd like Horne, with huge horns on his head. The hour shall be just between twelve and one, And at that time we will meet him both: Then would I have you present there at hand, With little boys disguis'd and dress'd like fairies, For to affright fat Falstaff in the woods." 134 [ACT IV. MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. With rounds of waxen tapers on their heads, And rattles in their hands; upon a sudden, As Falstaff, she, and I, are newly met, Let them from forth a saw-pit rush at once With some diffused a song; upon their sight, We two in great amazedness will fly: Then let them all encircle him about, b And fairy-like, to-pinch the unclean knight; And ask him, why, that hour of fairy revel, In their so sacred paths he dares to tread, In shape profane. MRS. FORD. And till he tell the truth, Let the supposed fairies pinch him sound, And burn him with their tapers. MRS. PAGE. The truth being known, We'll all present ourselves; dis-horn the spirit, And mock him home to Windsor. FORD. The children must Be practis'd well to this, or they 'll ne'er do 't. EVA. I will teach the children their behaviours; and I will be like a jack-an- apes also, to burn the knight with my taber. FORD. That will be excellent. I'll go buy them vizards. MRS. PAGE. My Nan shall be the queen of all the fairies, Finely attired in a robe of white. PAGE. That silk will I go buy!-and in that time Shall master Slender steal my Nan away, [Aside. And marry her at Eton.-Go, send to Falstaff straight. FORD. Nay, I'll to him again, in name of Brook; He'll tell me all his purpose: Sure, he 'll come. MRS. PAGE. Fear not you that: Go, get us properties, And tricking for our fairies. EVA. Let us about it: It is admirable pleasures, and fery honest knaveries. MRS. PAGE. Go, mistress Ford, [Exeunt PAGE, FORD, and EVANS. Send Quickly to sir John, to know his mind. I'll to the doctor; he hath my good will, And none but he, to marry with Nan Page. That Slender, though well landed, is an idiot; And he my husband best of all affects: The doctor is well money'd, and his friends a Diffused-wild. b To-pinch; to as a prefix to a verb is frequent in Spenser: as "With locks all loose, and raiment all to-tore." We find it in Milton's 'Comus:'- "Were all to-ruffled and sometimes impair'd." [Exit Mrs. FORD. SCENE V.] 135 MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. Potent at court; he, none but he, shall have her, Though twenty thousand worthier come to crave her. [Exit. SCENE V.—A Room in the Garter Inn. Enter HOST and SIMPLE. HOST. What wouldst thou have, boor? what, thick-skin? speak, breathe, dis- cuss; brief, short, quick, snap. SIM. Marry, sir, I come to speak with sir John Falstaff from master Slender. Host. There's his chamber, his house, his castle, his standing-bed, and truckle- bed 19; 't is painted about with the story of the prodigal, fresh and new: Go, knock and call; he'll speak like an Anthropophaginian unto thee: Knock, I say. SIM. There's an old woman, a fat woman, gone up into his chamber: I'll be so bold as stay, sir, till she come down; I come to speak with her, indeed. HOST. Ha! a fat woman! the knight may be robbed: I'll call.-Bully knight! Bully sir John! speak from thy lungs military: Art thou there? it is thine host, thine Ephesian, calls. FAL. [above.] How now, mine host? HOST. Here's a Bohemian-Tartar tarries the coming down of thy fat woman. Let her descend, bully, let her descend; my chambers are honourable: Fie! privacy? fie! Enter FALSTAFF. FAL. There was, mine host, an old fat woman even now with me; but she's gone. SIM. Pray you, sir, was 't not the wise woman of Brentford? FAL. Ay, marry, was it, muscle-shell: What would you with her? SIM. My master, sir, my master Slender, sent to her, seeing her go thorough the streets, to know, sir, whether one Nym, sir, that beguiled him of a chain, had the chain, or no. FAL. I spake with the old woman about it. SIM. And what says she, I pray, sir? FAL. Marry, she says, that the very same man that beguiled master Slender of his chain cozened him of it. SIM. I would I could have spoken with the woman herself: I had other things to have spoken with her too, from him. FAL. What are they? let us know. Host. Ay, come; quick. SIM. I may not conceal them, sir. HOST. Conceal them, or thou diest. a Wise woman. Scot, in his Discovery of Witchcraft,' says "At this day it is indifferent to say in the English tongue, She is a witch, or she is a wise woman. 136 [ACT IV. MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. SIM. Why, sir, they were nothing but about mistress Anne Page; to know if it were my master's fortune to have her, or no. FAL. 'T is, 't is his fortune. SIM. What, sir? FAL. To have her,—or no: Go; say, the woman told me so. SIM. May I be bold to say so, sir? FAL. Ay, sir Tikea; who more bold? SIM. I thank your worship: I shall make my master glad with these tidings. [Exit SIMPLE. Host. Thou art clerkly, thou art clerkly, sir John: Was there a wise woman with thee? FAL. Ay, that there was, mine host; one that hath taught me more wit than ever I learned before in my life; and I paid nothing for it neither, but was paid for my learning. Enter BARDOLPH. BARD. Out, alas, sir! cozenage! mere cozenage. HOST. Where be my horses? speak well of them, varletto. BARD. Run away with the cozeners: for so soon as I came beyond Eton, they threw me off, from behind one of them, in a slough of mire; and set spurs and away, like three German devils, three doctor Faustuses. HOST. They are gone but to meet the duke, villain: do not say they be fled; Germans are honest men. EVA. Where is mine host? Enter Sir HUGH EVANS. HOST. What is the matter, sir? EVA. Have a care of your entertainments: there is a friend of mine come to town, tells me there is three couzin germans, that has cozened all the hosts of Readings, of Maidenhead, of Colebrook, of horses and money. I tell you for good-will, look you: you are wise, and full of gibes and vlouting- stogs; and 't is not convenient you should be cozened: Fare you well. Enter Dr. CAIUS. CAIUS. Vere is mine host de Jarterre? HOST. Here, master doctor, in perplexity, and doubtful dilemma. [Exit. CAIUS. I cannot tell vat is dat : But it is tell-a-me, dat you make grand prepara- tion for a duke de Jarmany: by my trot, dere is no duke dat de court is know to come: I tell you for good vill: adieu. [Exit. HOST. Hue and cry, villain, go:-assist me, knight; I am undone: fly, run, hue and cry, villain! I am undone ! [Exeunt Host and BARDOLPH. FAL. I would all the world might be cozened; for I have been cozened and beaten too. If it should come to the ear of the court, how I have been a Tike. The folio has like; but the quarto, " I, tike.” SCENE VI.] 137 MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. transformed, and how my transformation hath been washed and cudgelled, they would melt me out of my fat, drop by drop, and liquor fishermen's boots with me. I warrant, they would whip me with their fine wits, till I were as crest-fallen as a dried pear. I never prospered since I forswore myself at primero. Well, if my wind were but long enough [to say my prayers a], I would repent.- Now! whence come you? Enter Mistress QUICKLY. QUICK. From the two parties, forsooth. FAL. The devil take one party, and his dam the other, and so they shall be both bestowed! I have suffered more for their sakes, more, than the villainous inconstancy of man's disposition is able to bear. QUICK. And have not they suffered? Yes, I warrant; speciously one of them; mistress Ford, good heart, is beaten black and blue, that you cannot see a white spot about her. FAL. What tell'st thou me of black and blue? I was beaten myself into all the colours of the rainbow; and I was like to be apprehended for the witch of Brentford; but that my admirable dexterity of wit, my counterfeiting the action of an old woman, delivered me, the knave constable had set me i' the stocks, i' the common stocks, for a witch. QUICK. Sir, let me speak with you in your chamber: you shall hear how things go; and, I warrant, to your content. Here is a letter will say somewhat. Good hearts, what ado here is to bring you together! Sure, one of you does not serve heaven well that you are so crossed. FAL. Come up into my chamber. [Exeunt. SCENE VI.-Another Room in the Garter Inn. Enter FENTON and HOST. HOST. Master Fenton, talk not to me; my mind is heavy, I will give over all. FENT. Yet hear me speak: Assist me in my purpose, And, as I am a gentleman, I'll give thee A hundred pounds in gold, more than your loss. HOST. I will hear you, master Fenton; and I will, at the least, keep your counsel. FENT. From time to time I have acquainted you With the dear love I bear to fair Anne Page; Who, mutually, hath answer'd my affection, a The words in brackets are only found in the quarto. 138 [ACT IV. MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. (So far forth as herself might be her chooser,) Even to my wish: I have a letter from her Of such contents as you will wonder at; The mirth whereof so larded with my matter, That neither, singly, can be manifested, Without the show of both,-wherein fat Falstaffa Hath a great scene: the image of the jest a I'll show you here at large. Hark, good mine host: To-night at Herne's oak, just 'twixt twelve and one, Must my sweet Nan present the fairy queen : The purpose why, is here; in which disguise, While other jests are something rank on foot, Her father hath commanded her to slip Away with Slender, and with him at Eton Immediately to marry: she hath consented: Now, sir, Her mother, even strong against that match, And firm for doctor Caius, hath appointed That he shall likewise shuffle her away, While other sports are tasking of their minds, And at the deanery, where a priest attends, Straight marry her: to this her mother's plot She, seemingly obedient, likewise hath Made promise to the doctor.-Now thus it rests: Her father means she shall be all in white; And in that habit, when Slender sees his time To take her by the hand, and bid her go, She shall go with him: her mother hath intended, The better to denote her to the doctor, (For they must all be mask'd and vizarded,) That, quaint in green, she shall be loose enrob'd, With ribands pendant, flaring 'bout her head; And when the doctor spies his vantage ripe, To pinch her by the hand, and, on that token, The maid hath given consent to go with him. HOST. Which means she to deceive? father or mother? FENT. Both, my good host, to go along with me: And here it rests,--that you 'll procure the vicar To stay for me at church, 'twixt twelve and one, And, in the lawful name of marrying, To give our hearts united ceremony. a This line in the folio is- "Without the show of both; fat Falstaff." Malone inserted wherein, which appears necessary. SCENE VI.] 139 MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. HOST. Well, husband your device; I'll to the vicar : Bring you the maid, you shall not lack a priest. FENT. So shall I evermore be bound to thee; Besides, I'll make a present recompense. ["Sometime a keeper here in Windsor forest."] [Exeunt. אם [ Herne's Oak—“ Sixty years since.” ] ACT V. SCENE I.-A Room in the Garter Inn. Enter FALSTAFF and Mrs. QUICKLY. FAL. Prithee, no more prattling:-go. I'll hold: This is the third time; I hope, good luck lies in odd numbers. Away, go; they say there is divinity in odd numbers, either in nativity, chance, or death.-Away. QUICK. I'll provide you a chain: and I'll do what I can to get you a pair of horns. FAL. Away, I say; time wears: hold up your head, and mince. Enter FORD. [Exit Mrs. QUICKLY. ` How now, master Brook? Master Brook, the matter will be known to-night, Be you in the park about midnight, at Herne's oak, and you shall or never. see wonders. SCENE III.] 141 MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. FORD. Went you not to her yesterday, sir, as you told me you had appointed? FAL. I went to her, master Brook, as you see, like a poor old man: but I came from her, master Brook, like a poor old woman. That same knave, Ford her husband, hath the finest mad devil of jealousy in him, master Brook, that ever governed frenzy. I will tell you:-He beat me grievously, in the shape of a woman; for in the shape of man, master Brook, I fear not Goliah with a weaver's beam; because I know, also, life is a shuttle. I am in haste; go along with me; I'll tell you all, master Brook. Since I plucked geese, played truant, and whipped top, I knew not what it was to be beaten, till lately. Follow me: I'll tell you strange things of this knave Ford on whom to-night I will be revenged, and I will deliver his wife into. your hand.-Follow: Strange things in hand, master Brook! follow. [Exeunt. SCENE II.-Windsor Park. Enter PAGE, SHALLOW, and Slender. PAGE. Come, come; we 'll couch i' the castle-ditch, till we see the light of our fairies. Remember, son Slender, my daughter. SLEN. Ay, forsooth; I have spoke with her, and we have a nay-word, how to know one another. I come to her in white, and cry mum; she cries budget; and by that we know one another. SHAL. That's good too: but what needs either your mum, or her budget? the white will decipher her well enough.—It hath struck ten o'clock. PAGE. The night is dark; light and spirits will become it well. Heaven prosper our sport! No man means evil but the devil, and we shall know Let's away; follow me. him by his horns. SCENE III.-The Street in Windsor. Enter Mrs. PAGE, Mrs. FORD, and Dr. CAIUS. [Exeunt. MRS. PAGE. Master doctor, my daughter is in green when you see your time, take her by the hand, away with her to the deanery, and despatch it quickly: Go before into the park; we two must go together. CAIUS. I know vat I have to do: Adieu. MRS. PAGE. Fare you well, sir. [Exit CAIUS.] My husband will not rejoice so much at the abuse of Falstaff, as he will chafe at the doctor's marrying my daughter: but 't is no matter; better a little chiding than a great deal of heartbreak. MRS. FORD. Where is Nan now, and her troop of fairies? and the Welsh devil, Hugh a? MRS. PAGE. They are all couched in a pit hard by Herne's oak, with obscured lights; which, at the very instant of Falstaff's and our meeting, they will at once display to the night. a The old copies have Herne. It is clearly Hugh. COMEDIES.-VOL. II. K 142 [ACT V. MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. MRS. FORD. That cannot choose but amaze him. MRS. PAGE. If he be not amazed, he will be mocked; if he be amazed, he will every way be mocked. MRS. FORD. We 'll betray him finely. MRS. PAGE. Against such lewdsters, and their lechery, Those that betray them do no treachery. MRS. FORD. The hour draws on. To the oak, to the oak! SCENE IV.-Windsor Park. Enter Sir HUGH EVANS and Fairies. [Exeunt. Eva. Trib, trib, fairies; come; and remember your parts: be pold, I pray you; follow me into the pit; and when I give the watch-'ords, do as I pid you ; Come, come; trib, trib. SCENE V.-Another part of the Park. Enter FALSTAFF, disguised, with a buck's head on. [Exeunt. FAL. The Windsor bell hath struck twelve; the minute draws on: Now, the hot-blooded gods assist me:-Remember, Jove, thou wast a bull for thy Europa; love set on thy horns. O powerful love! that, in some respects, makes a beast a man; in some other, a man a beast. You were also, Jupiter, a swan, for the love of Leda:-0, omnipotent love! how near the god drew to the complexion of a goose!—A fault done first in the form of a beast;-O Jove, a beastly fault! and then another fault in the semblance of a fowl; think on 't, Jove; a foul fault. When gods have hot backs, what shall poor men do? For me, I am here a Windsor stag; and the fattest, I think, i' the forest: Send me a cool rut-time, Jove, or who can blame me Who comes here? my doe? to piss my tallow? Enter Mrs. FORD and Mrs. PAGE. MRS. FORD. Sir John? art thou there, my deer? my male deer? FAL. My doe with the black scut?-Let the sky rain potatoes; let it thunder to the tune of 'Green Sleeves;' hail kissing-comfits, and snow eringoesa; let there come a tempest of provocation, I will shelter me here. [Embracing her. MRS. FORD. Mistress Page is come with me, sweetheart. FAL. Divide me like a bribe-buck, each a haunch: I will keep my sides to myself, my shoulders for the fellow of this walk, and my horns I bequeath your husbands. Am I a woodman? ha! Speak I like Herne the hunter?— a Holinshed tells us that in 1583 was performed "a very stately tragedy named' Dido,' wherein the queen's banquet (with Eneas' narration of the destruction of Troy) was lively described in a marchpaine pattern,-the tempest wherein it hailed small confects, rained rose-water, and snew an artificial kind of snow, all strange, marvellous, and abundant." b Do I understand woodman's craft-the hunter's art? ま ​SCENE V.] 143 MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. Why, now is Cupid a child of conscience; he makes restitution. As I am a true spirit, welcome! MRS. PAGE. Alas! what noise! MRS. FORD. Heaven forgive our sins! FAL. What should this be? MRS. FORD. [Noise within. Away, away! MRS. PAGE. [They run off. FAL. I think the devil will not have me damned, lest the oil should set hell on fire; he. would never else cross me thus. that is in me Enter Sir HUGH EVANS like a satyr; Mrs. QUICKLY, and PISTOL; ANNE PAGE, as the Fairy Queen, attended by her brother and others, dressed like fairies, with waxen tapers on their heads. ANNE. a Fairies, black, gray, green, and white, You moonshine revellers, and shades of night, You orphan-heirs of fixed destiny, Attend your office and your quality. Crier Hobgoblin, make the fairy oyes b. PIST. Elves, list your names; silence, you airy toys. Cricket, to Windsor chimneys shalt thou leap: Where fires thou find'st unrak'd, and hearths unswept, There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry: Our radiant queen hates sluts and sluttery. FAL. They are fairies; he that speaks to them shall die : I'll wink and couch: no man their works must eye. [Lies down upon his face. EVA. Where's Pede?—Go you, and where you find a maid, That, ere she sleep, has thrice her prayers said, Raise up the organs of her fantasy, Sleep she as sound as careless infancy; But those as sleep and think not on their sins, Pinch them, arms, legs, backs, shoulders, sides, and shins. a It was suggested to us by Dr. Maginn, that these poetical speeches belong to Anne, as the Fairy Queen. They are ordinarily given to Quickly. We have traced the origin of this mistake, which is perfectly evident. In the original quarto we have not a word of the arrangement for Anne to present the fairy queen." These lines are only found in the folio:- "L "To-night at Herne's oak, just 'twixt twelve and one, Must my sweet Nan present the fairy queen." But in the quarto edition, in the stage-direction of this scene, we have, "Enter Sir Hugh like a satyr, and boys dressed like fairies; Mistress Quickly like the Queen of Fairies." What the Queen had to say is greatly elaborated in the folio; and there the stage-direction is for the entrance, without any designation, of "Anne Page, Fairies, Page, Ford, Quickly," &c. We have no doubt that, the poet having determined that Anne should "present the fairy queen," these speeches un- questionably belong to her; and we have made the change accordingly. b The o-yes, the oyez, of the crier of a proclamation, was clearly a monosyllable, rhyming to toys. Elevate her fancy. K 2 144 [ACT V. MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. ANNE. About, about; Search Windsor-castle, elves, within and out: Strew good luck, ouphes, on every sacred room; That it may stand till the perpetual doom, In state as wholesome, as in state 't is fit; Worthy the owner, and the owner it. The several chairs of order look you scour With juice of balm, and every precious flower: Each fair instalment, coat, and several crest, With loyal blazon, evermore be bless'd! And nightly, meadow-fairies, look, you sing, Like to the Garter's compass, in a ring: The expressure that it bears, green let it be, More fertile-fresh than all the field to see; And, Hony soit qui mal y penseª, write, In emerald tufts, flowers purple, blue, and white: . Like sapphire, pearl, and rich embroidery, Buckled below fair knighthood's bending knee: Fairies use flowers for their charactery. Away; disperse: But till 't is one o'clock, Our dance of custom, round about the oak Of Herne the hunter, let us not forget. EVA. Pray you, lock hand in hand; yourselves in order set: And twenty glow-worms shall our lanterns be, To guide our measure round about the tree. But, stay: I smell a man of middle earth. FAL. Heavens defend me from that Welsh fairy! Lest he transform me to a piece of cheese! PIST. Vild worm, thou wast o'erlook'd even in thy birth. ANNE. With trial-fire touch me his finger-end. If he be chaste, the flame will back descend And turn him to no pain; but if he start, It is the flesh of a corrupted heart. PIST. A trial, come. EVA. Come, will this wood take fire? [They burn him with their tapers. FAL. Oh, oh, oh! ANNE. Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire ! About him, fairies; sing a scornful rhyme ; And, as you trip, still pinch him to your time. SONG. Fie on sinful fantasy! Fie on lust and luxury! b Pense is a dissyllable-a proof that Shakspere knew the distinction between French verse and prose. a Theobald here inserts a speech from the quarto:-" It is right; indeed he is full of lecheries * SCENE V.] 145 MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. Lust is but a bloody fire, Kindled with unchaste desire, Fed in heart; whose flames aspire, As thoughts do blow them, higher and higher. Pinch him, fairies, mutually; Pinch him for his villainy; Pinch him, and burn him, and turn him about, Till candles, and starlight, and moonshine be out. [During this song the fairies pinch Falstaff. Doctor Caius comes one way, and steals away a fairy in green; Slender another way, and takes off a fairy in white; and Fenton comes, and steals away Mrs. Anne Page. A noise of hunting is made within. All the fairies run away. Falstaff pulls off his buck's head, and rises.] Enter PAGE, FORD; Mrs. PAGE, and Mrs. FORD. They lay hold on him. PAGE. Nay, do not fly; I think, we have watch'd you now: Will none but Herne the hunter serve your turn? MRS. PAGE. I pray you, come; hold up the jest no higher: Now, good sir John, how like you Windsor wives? See you these, husband? do not these fair yokes Become the forest better than the town? FORD. Now, sir, who's a cuckold now?-Master Brook, Falstaff's a knave, a cuckoldly knave; here are his horns, master Brook: And, master Brook, he hath enjoyed nothing of Ford's but his buck-basket, his cudgel, and twenty pounds of money, which must be paid to master Brook; his horses are arrested for it, master Brook. MRS. FORD. Sir John, we have had ill luck; we could never meet. I will never take you for my love again, but I will always count you my deer. FAL. I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass. FORD. Ay, and an ox too; both the proofs are extant. FAL. And these are not fairies? I was three or four times in the thought they were not fairies: and yet the guiltiness of my mind, the sudden surprise of my powers, drove the grossness of the foppery into a received belief, in despite of the teeth of all rhyme and reason, that they were fairies. See now, how wit may be made a Jack-a-lent, when 't is upon ill employment. and iniquity." Theobald says, "this speech is very much in character for Sir Hugh." He forgets that the real actors of the comedy are here speaking in assumed characters. Pistol has a speech or two; but all traces of Pistol's own character are suppressed. The entire scene is elevated into pure poetry in the amended edition, and none of the coarseness of the original is retained. For example, in the quarto, Sir Hugh says,— "Where's Pede? Go and see where brokers sleep, And fox-eyed serjeants with their mace; Go lay the proctors in the street, And pinch the lousy serjeant's face; Spare none of these when they 're a-bed, But such whose nose looks blue and red." 146 [ACT V. MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. EVA. Sir John Falstaff, serve Got, and leave your desires, and fairies will not pinse you. FORD. Well said, fairy Hugh. Eva. And leave you your jealousies too, I pray you. FORD. I will never mistrust my wife again, till thou art able to woo her in good English. FAL. Have I laid my brain in the sun, and dried it, that it wants matter to prevent so gross o'erreaching as this? Am I ridden with a Welsh goat too? Shall I have a coxcomb of frize? 'Tis time I were choked with a piece of toasted cheese. EVA. Seese is not good to give putter; your pelly is all putter. FAL. Seese and putter! have I lived to stand at the taunts of one that makes fritters of English? This is enough to be the decay of lust and late-walk- ing through the realm. MRS. PAGE. Why, sir John, do you think, though we would have thrust virtue out of our hearts by the head and shoulders, and have given ourselves with- out scruple to hell, that ever the devil could have made you our delight? FORD. What, a hodge-pudding? a bag of flax? MRS. PAGE. A puffed man? PAGE. Old, cold, withered, and of intolerable entrails? FORD. And one that is as slanderous as Satan? PAGE. And as poor as Job? FORD. And as wicked as his wife? Eva. And given to fornications, and to taverns, and sack, and wine, and me- theglins, and to drinkings, and swearings, and starings, pribbles and prabbles? FAL. Well, I am your theme: you have the start of me; I am dejected; I am not able to answer the Welsh flannel: ignorance itself is a plummet o'er me: use me as you will. FORD. Marry, sir, we'll bring you to Windsor, to one master Brook, that you have cozened of money, to whom you should have been a pander: over and above that you have suffered, I think, to repay that money will be a biting affliction b. PAGE. Yet be cheerful, knight: thou shalt eat a posset to-night at my house; where I will desire thee to laugh at my wife that now laughs at thee: Tell her, master Slender hath married her daughter. MRS. PAGE. Doctors doubt that; if Anne Page be my daughter, she is, by this, doctor Caius' wife. Enter SLENDER. SLEN. Whoo, ho! ho! father Page! PAGE. Son! how now? how now, son? have you despatched? a Plummet. Johnson would read plume; Farmer, planet. [Aside. The whole scene being changed, three lines are here ordinarily foisted in from the quarto:- "MRS. FORD. Nay, husband, let that go to make amends: Forgive that sum, and so we 'll all be friends. FORD. Well, here 's my hand; all 's forgiven at last.” SCENE V.] 147 MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. SLEN. Despatched!-I'll make the best in Glocestershire know on 't; would I were hanged, la, else. PAGE. Of what, son? SLEN. I came yonder at Eton to marry mistress Anne Page, and she's a great lubberly boy. If it had not been i' the church, I would have swinged him, or he should have swinged me. If I did not think it had been Anne Page would I might never stir, and 't is a postmaster's boy. PAGE. Upon my life then you took the wrong. SLEN. What need you tell me that? If I had been married to him, for not have had him. I think so, when I took a boy for a girl : all he was in woman's apparel, I would Did not I tell PAGE. Why, this is your own folly. my daughter by her garments? SLEN. I went to her in white, and cried mum, and she cried budget, as Anne and I had appointed; and yet it was not Anne, but a postmaster's boy". MRS. PAGE. Good George, be not angry: I knew of your purpose; turned my daughter into green; and, indeed, she is now with the doctor at the deanery, Did not I tell you how you should know and there married. Enter CAIUS. CAIUS. Vere is mistress Page? By gar, I am cozened; I ha' married un garçon, a boy; un paisan, by gar, a boy; it is not Anne Page: by gar, I am cozened. MRS. PAGE. Why, did you take her in green? CAIUS. Ay, be gar, and 't is a boy; be gar, I'll raise all Windsor. [Exit CAIUS. FORD. This is strange: Who hath got the right Anne? PAGE. My heart misgives me: Here comes master Fenton. Enter FENTON and ANNE Page. How now, master Fenton? ANNE. Pardon, good father! good, my mother, pardon! PAGE. Now, mistress? how chance you went not with master Slender? MRS. PAGE. Why went you not with master doctor, maid? FENT. You do amaze her: Hear the truth of it. You would have married her most shamefully, Where there was no proportion held in love. The truth is, she and I, long since contracted, Are now so sure that nothing can dissolve us. The offence is holy that she hath committed: And this deceit loses the name of craft, Of disobedience, or unduteous title; Since therein she doth evitate and shun a The original has green instead of white, which is clearly a mistake:-" Her father means she shall be all in white.” Two other lines are here introduced from the quarto, in modern editions:- "EVA. Jeshu! Master Slender, cannot you see but marry boys? PAGE. O, I am vexed at heart: What shall I do?” 148 [ACT V. MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. A thousand irreligious cursed hours, Which forced marriage would have brought upon her. FORD. Stand not amaz'd: here is no remedy : In love, the heavens themselves do guide the state; Money buys lands, and wives are sold by fate. FAL. I am glad, though you have ta’en a special stand to strike at me, that your arrow hath glanced. PAGE. Well, what remedy? Fenton, heaven give thee joy! What cannot be eschew'd must be embrac'd. FAL. When night-dogs run all sorts of deer are chas'da. MRS. PAGE. Well, I will muse no further: master Fenton, Heaven give you many, many merry days! Good husband, let us every one go home, And laugh this sport o'er by a country fire; Sir John and all. FORD. Let it be so:-Sir John, To master Brook you yet shall hold your word; For he, to-night, shall lie with mistress Ford. [Exeunt. a We have also another line restored-rescued, as the editors say-good in itself, but out of place:- "EVA. I will dance and eat plums at your wedding." J.JACKSOLI. ["We'll couch i' the castle ditch." | ["Master of fence."] ILLUSTRATION S. 1 SCENE I." Sir Hugh, persuade me not." ACT I. WE find several instances in Shakspere of a priest being called Sir; as, Sir Hugh in this comedy; Sir Oliver in 'As You Like It;' Sir Topas in Twelfth Night;' and Sir Nathaniel in 'Love's Labour's Lost.'-In a curious treatise quoted by Todd, entitled 'A Decacordon of Ten Quodlibeticall Questions concerning Religion and State, &c., newly imprinted, 1602,' we have the following magniloquent explanation of the matter:- By the laws armorial, civil, and of arms, a Priest in his place in civil conversation is always before any Esquire, as being a Knight's fellow by his holy orders: and the third of the three Sirs, which only were in request of old (no baron, viscount, earl, nor marquis being then in use) to wit Sir King, Sir Knight, and Sir Priest; this word Dominus, in Latin, being a noun substantive common to them all, as Dominus meus Rex, Dominus meus Joab, Dominus Sacerdos: and afterwards, when honours began to take their subordination one under another, and titles of princely dignity to be hereditary to succeeding posterity (which happened upon the fall of the Roman empire), then Dominus was in Latin applied to all noble and generous hearts, even from the king to the meanest Priest, or temporal person of gentle blood, coat-armour perfect, and ancestry. But Sir in English was restrained to these four; Sir Knight, Sir Priest, Sir Graduate, and in com- mon speech Sir Esquire: so 'as always since distinction of titles were, Sir Priest was ever the second." Fuller, in his 'Church History,' gives us a more homely version of the title. After saying that anciently there were in England more Sirs than Knights, he adds, "Such priests as have the addition of Sir before their Christian name were men not graduated in the university, 150 [ACT I. ILLUSTRATIONS. " being in orders, but not in degrees, whilst | rank according to their academical degrees others entituled masters had commenced in the arts.' In a note in Smith's 'Antiquities of Westminster,' Mr. John Sidney Hawkins gives us the following explanation of the passage in Fuller:- "It was, probably, only a translation of the Latin dominus, which in strictness means, when applied to persons under the degree of knight- hood, nothing more than master, or, as it is now written, Mr. In the university persons would only, and there was, consequently, no danger of confusion between baronets and knights and those of the clergy, but to preserve the distinc- tion which Fuller points out, it seems to have been thought necessary to translate dominus, in this case, by the appellative Sir; for had magis- ter been used instead of dominus, or had domi- nus been rendered master, non-graduates, to whom it had been applied, would have been mistaken for magistri artium, masters of arts.” Thomas Bicy 2 SCENE I." The luce is the fresh fish; the salt fish is an old coat." It is This speech is an heraldic puzzle. pretty clear that "the dozen white luces" apply to the arms of the Lucy family. In Ferne's 'Blazon of Gentry,' 1586, we have, "signs of the coat should something agree with the name. It is the coat of Geffray Lord Lucy. He did bear gules, three lucies hariant argent." The luce is a pike," the fresh fish;" not the "familiar beast to man." So far is clear; but why "the salt fish is an old coat" is not so intelligible. Farmer thus explains it. "Slender has observed, that the family might give a dozen white luces in their coat; to which the Justice adds, 'It is an old one.' This produces the Parson's blunder, and Shallow's correction. The luce is not the louse but the pike, the fresh fish of that name. Indeed our coat is old, as I said, and the fish cannot be fresh and therefore we bear the white, i. e., the pickled or salt fish.'" This explanation is very forced and unsatisfactory. We have received an explana- tion from a correspondent a correspondent A Lover of Heraldry'-which at any rate is extremely ingenious :- "The arms of the Lucys (now quartered by the Duke of Northumberland) are gules, three luces hauriant, argent. The fish is called hauriant in heraldry when it is drawn erect, or SCENE I.] 151 MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. in the act of springing up to draw in the air. Now Shallow is not a very exact herald, and does not apply the special term hauriant to the luce, but the term saltant or saliant, which expresses the same thing, but is only used of beasts, like lions, &c. The first part of the sentence is merely in answer to what Sir Hugh has just said, explaining what the luce is. The luce is the fresh fish,' i. e., the large fresh-water fish, the pike. Then he goes on in conclusion, —but without any opposition of the latter part of his sentence to the first,-' The salt fish (i. e., the fish or luce saltant) is an old coat.' With- out taking it as a strict and formed adjective, I think in Shallow's mouth the salt luces may well mean the saltant lucies." We should notice, however, that in the seal of the Sir Thomas Lucy of Shakspere's time, which we have copied from a deed in the pos- session of Mr. Wheler, of Stratford, the three luces are not saltant or hauriant. We cannot attempt to reconcile this. 3 SCENE I.-"I heard say he was outrun on Cotsall." The Cotswold Hills in Gloucestershire, like many other places, were anciently famous for rural sports. In the Second Part of 'Henry IV.,' Shallow mentions "Will Squele, a Cotswold man,” as one of his four swinge bucklers. But Cotswold subsequently became famous for "the yearly celebration of Mr. Robert Dover's Olym- pic Games." Mr. Robert Dover was an attorney at Barton on the Heath, in Warwickshire; and early in the reign of James I. established these "Olympick Games," of wrestling, leaping, pitch- ing the bar, and coursing. His merits had the good fortune to be celebrated in verse by Dray- ton, Randolph, and Jonson, in a book called 'Annalia Dubrensia.' The passage "he was out-run at Cotsall" does not occur in the quarto of 1602; and therefore, whether the reference is to Dover's games, or to the unpatronised games of the Cotswold men themselves, is not material, as affecting the date of the original comedy. It is clear from the passage in 'Henry IV.,' "Will Squele a Cotswold man," that Cotswold had some celebrity before Dover made it famous. 4 SCENE I." Seven groats in mill sixpences.” How Slender could be robbed of two shillings and fourpence in sixpences would require his own ingenuity to explain. The mill sixpences coined in 1561 and 1562 were the first milled money used in this kingdom. We subjoin a representation from a beautiful specimen in the British Museum. EGINA ELIZA MEV POS 5 SCENE I." Two Edward shovel-boards, that cost me two shilling and two pence a-piece.” In an illustration of the second Act of 'Henry IV., Part II.' we have exhibited the broad shilling of Edward VI.-the Edward shovel-board. We there expressed an opinion that Slender's costly shillings were probably lucky ones. Douce, however, thus explains the matter:-"We must suppose that the shillings purchased of the miller had been hoarded by him, and were in high preservation, and heavier than those which had been worn in circulation. These would consequently be of greater import- ance to a nice player at the game of shovel- board, and induce him, especially if an opulent man, to procure them at a price far beyond their original value.” • SCENE I.—“I had rather than forty shillings, I had my book of Songs and Sonnets here.” The exquisite bit of nature of poor Slender wanting his book of Songs and Sonnets, and his book of Riddles, to help him out in his talk with Anne Page, is not found in the original Sketch. Malone thinks that the 'Songs and Sonnets' of Lord Surrey and others, printed in 1567, are here alluded to; but surely there were many other poetical collections of Shakspere's own day which were as familiar to the young gentlemen and ladies as the Riddles. It is scarcely necessary for Reed to tell us that the a popular book.” latter was 7 SCENE I.-" Master of fence." Steevens informs us that "master of defence, on this occasion, does not simply mean a pro- fessor of the art of fencing, but a person who 152 [ACT I. ILLUSTRATIONS. had taken his master's degree in it;" and he adds, that in this art there were three degrees, a master, a provost, and a scholar. We doubt whether Slender, on this occasion," meant very precisely to indicate the quality of the professor with whom he played at sword and dagger. Mr. Buss's design, in which a novice is represented taking his first lesson, will give a better idea of a school where "the noble science of defence” was taught in the time of Elizabeth, than any lengthened description. 8 "Publius, a student of the common law, To Paris-garden doth himself withdraw;- Leaving old Ployden, Dyer, and Broke alone, To see old Harry Hunkes and Sacarson." The following representation of "Sackerson loose" has been composed by Mr. Buss, upon the authority of a description in Strutt's 'Sports and Pastimes. If Slender had "taken him by the chain," Sackerson and Slender must have been equals in simplicity. Slender's triumph of manhood over the women, who "so cried and shrieked at it," is exquisite. The passage is º SCENE I.—“ I have seen Sackerson loose twenty wonderfully improved from the corresponding times." one in the original sketch :- "Slen. What, have you bears in your town, mistress Anne. I cannot tell, master Slender, I think there be. Slen. Ha, how say you? I warrant you 're afraid of a bear let loose, are you not? Anne. Yes, trust me. Slen. Now that's meat and drink to me. I'll run to a bear, and take her by the muzzle, you never saw the like. But indeed I cannot blame you, for they are marvellous rough things. The inquiry of Slender "be there bears i' the town?" furnishes a proof of the universality of Anne, your dogs bark so? the practice of bear-baiting. In the time of Henry VIII. the bear-gardens on Bank-side were open on Sundays; and the price of admission was a half- penny. That it was a barbarous custom we can have no doubt. Master Laneham, in his letters from Kenilworth, tells us that when a bear was loose from the dogs, it was a matter of goodly relief to him to shake his ears twice or thrice. Sackerson was a celebrated bear exhibited in Paris Garden in Southwark. In a collection of Epigrams by Sir John Davies we have the ollowing lines :- Anne. Will you go in to dinner, master Slender? The meat stays for you. Slen. No faith, not I, I thank you. I cannot abide the smell of hot meat, ne'er since I broke my shin. I'll tell you how it came, by my troth. A fencer and I played three venies for a dish of stewed prunes, and I with my ward defending my head, he hit my shin; yes faith." [Sackerson oose. MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. 153 LOCAL ILLUSTRATION. In the original editions of this comedy we have no descriptions of the scenes, such as, 'Street in Windsor,' 'Windsor Park,' 'Field near Frog- | more.' These necessary explanations were added by Rowe; but we may collect from the text that Shakspere had a perfect knowledge of the lo- calities of Windsor. Having the advantage of the same local experience, we shall attempt to follow the poet in these passages; and, without going into any minute descriptions, endeavour to show what was the Windsor of our ancestors, and such as it presented itself to Shakspere's observation. Although we have reason to believe, that the action of this play might originally have be- longed to the time of Elizabeth, yet the con- nexion of some of the characters as they now stand with characters of the historical plays of Henry IV., must place the period of the action about two centuries before Shakspere's own age. We have felt it necessary, therefore, in the arrangement of the illustrations, to give some notion of the Windsor of the time of Henry IV.; and the very tasteful designs which have been made by Mr. Creswick have especial reference to this object. At that period the town of Windsor no doubt consisted of scattered houses, surrounded with trees and gardens, approach- ing the castle, but not encroaching upon the ancient fortifications. The line of the walls and circular towers on the west and south sides next the town, was then unobstructed; and the moat or ditch by which the castle was then sur- rounded on all sides, was open. In the time of Henry IV., Windsor, although in many respects splendid as a palace, must externally have pre- sented the character of a very strong fortress. Its terraces, which were commenced by Eliza- beth, and finished by Charles II., did not con- ceal the stern grandeur of the walls standing boldly upon the rock of chalk. The windows of the towers were little more than loop-holes; and the only appearance of natural ornament was probably the clustering ivy in which the rook and starling had long built unmolested. The site of the present splendid chapel of St. George was occupied by a meaner edifice, which | Edward IV. pulled down, substituting that ex- quisite gem which is now amongst our best preserved ecclesiastical monuments. The build- ings which were added by Henry VII,, and by Elizabeth, at the western end of the north front of the Upper Ward, were of a more ornamental character than the older parts of the castle, indicating the establishment of an order of things in which the monarch and the people | could dwell more in security. | We shall here very briefly describe the Illus- trations which have reference to the castle and town of Windsor. The architectural Illustration at the head of the Introductory Notice exhibits the gallery which was built by Elizabeth in 1583. Sir Jeffrey Wyatville preserved this building almost unaltered. The few changes which he intro- duced in the lower part have had the effect of giving it a character of unity. Our view ex- hibits it as it stood before the late improve- ments. We have imagined Page's house as standing in the High Street, a little to the north of the present Town Hall, but on the opposite side. The description of the first scene of Act I., as we received it from Rowe, is, 'Windsor-before Page's House;' but as Anne Page enters with wine, it would seem more proper that the cha- racters should assemble in the garden front than in the street, and Mr. Creswick's design has therefore been made upon this principle. The street front of Page's house is exhibited at the head of Act II. A market cross is shown in this design. That of Windsor was erected in 1380, but demolished during the civil wars of Charles I. The very ancient church (see Act IV. Scene 6) which stood on the east side of the street, and which is represented in our sketch, was pulled down about 1814. The houses, it must be observed, of this design, as well as of the other street scenes, are imaginary; for Windsor, as compared with other places of antiquity, is most singularly deficient in relics of our old domestic architecture, there being very few houses in the town more than a century old, and, of those few which may date from the beginning of the seventeenth century, the ex- ternal character has been changed during our own recollection. The design at the head of Act III. has its locality in the ancient Peascod Street; from the lower part of which the round tower, or keep, is a very conspicuous and pic- turesque object. We, of course, present this remarkable building as it was seen before the 154 [ACT II. ILLUSTRATIONS. recent improvements. The locality of Ford's house, at the head of Act IV., is fixed in Thames Street. All the houses (most of them of a mean character), which stand on the west and north- west side of that narrow but not unpicturesque street, are encroachments on the castle ditch. By the removal of some of these, the fine old tower at the north-western angle of the walls, called Julius Caesar's Tower, and the centre tower on the same western front, called Garter's Tower, are seen to their bases. We have ex- hibited the street with these excrescences re- moved; but with garden houses on the opposite side, following the line of the walls. The vignette which we subjoin is that of the Winchester Tower, in its present state,—once the residence, it is said, of William of Wykeham, the original architect of the castle, and after- wards tenanted by Sir Jeffrey Wyatville, who changed Windsor from a gloomy fortress to a splendid palace, but without injuring the asso- ciations which belong to its ancient history, by the introduction of any incongruous features, such as deformed the Windsor of Charles II. A general view of Windsor, as it is, will be found in Illustrations to Act II. VASEY ACT II. • SCENE I." This Flemish drunkard.” THE English of the days of Elizabeth accused the people of the Low Countries with having taught them to drink to excess. The "men of war" who had campaigned in Flanders, accord- ing to Sir John Smythe, in his 'Discourses,' 1590, introduced this vice amongst us; "whereof it is come to pass that now-a-days there are very few feasts where our said men of war are present, but that they do invite and procure all the company, of what calling soever they be, to carousing and quaffing; and, because they will not be denied their challenges, they, with many new conges, ceremonies, and reverences, drink to the health and prosperity of princes; to the health of counsellors, and unto the health of their greatest friends both at home and abroad: in which exercise they never cease till they be dead drunk, or, as the Flemings say, Doot SCENE I.] 155 MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. dronken." He adds: "And this aforesaid detestable vice hath within these six or seven years taken wonderful root amongst our English nation, that in times past was wont to be of all nations of Christendom one of the soberest." 10 SCENE I. (also ACT V. Sc. 5.)——“Green Sleeves." This appears to have been a very popular song in Shakspere's time, and, judging from an allusion to it in Fletcher's Tragi-Comedy, 'The Loyal Subject,' as well as from a pamphlet entered at Stationers' Hall, in February, 1580, under the title of 'A Representation against Green Sleeves, by W. Elderton,' was thought gross, even in an age when what was in gay society called polite conversation was rarely free from indelicacy, and the drama teemed with jokes and expressions that now would not be tolerated in the servants' hall. The original words of Green Sleeves have not descended to us, but the tune was too good to be condemned to that oblivion which has been the fate of the verses to which it was first set: hence many adapted their poetical effusions to it, and among those extant, is “ a new courtly sonnet of the Lady Greensleeves," reprinted in Ellis's Specimens of the Early English Poets, from an extremely scarce miscellany, called, 'A Handful of Pleasant Delites, &c., by Clement Robinson, and others, 12mo, 1584.' This sonnet contains some curious particulars respecting female dress and manners, during the sixteenth century. At the time too when it was the fashion, in England and in France, to set sacred words to popular tunes, this air, among others, was selected for the purpose, as we learn from the books of the Stationers' Company, wherein appears, in Sep- tember, 1580, the following entry-" Green- sleeves, moralized to the Scriptures." Greensleeves is to be found in all the editions of The 'Dancing Master' that have come under our notice. In the seventeenth (1721) which is the best, it takes the title of "Greensleeves and yellow lace." It was introduced by Gay, or his friend Dr. Pepusch, in 'The Beggars' Opera,' set to the song, "Since laws were made for every degree," and is still well known, in quar- ters where ancient customs are yet kept up in all their rude simplicity, as "Christmas comes but once a year." Sir J. Hawkins, in the Appendix to his 'History of Music,' gives the first strain only: why he omitted the latter half is not stated. In all the copies of the air it appears in the now obsolete measure of six crotchets. In 'The Dancing Master' it is set in the key of A minor; in 'The Beggars' Opera,' in G minor. We here give it in a measure uni- versally understood, and have added such a base as seems to us to be in keeping with a vocal melody between two and three hundred years old. ALLEGRETTO. 6 mez. DE6 f # a In A Collection of National English Airs,' edited by W. Chappell (a very interesting work, showing great re- search), this tune is inserted in the key of E minor, with a moving base by Dr. Crotch. 156 [ACT II. ILLUSTRATIONS. 19# 9# mez. Ρ f I SCENE I.-"I have heard the Frenchman hath good skill in his rapier.” Shallow ridicules the formalities that belong to the use of the rapier, which those of the old school thought a cowardly weapon. The intro- duction of the rapier into England was ascribed to one Rowland York, who is thus spoken of in Carleton's 'Thankful Remembrance of God's Mercy,' 1625: "He was a Londoner, famous among the cutters of his time, for bringing in a new kind of fight,-to run the point of the rapier into a man's body. This manner of fight he brought first into England, with great admira- tion of his audaciousness; when in England, before that time, the use was, with little bucklers, and with broad swords, to strike, and not to thrust; and it was accounted unmanly to strike under the girdle." This passage from Carleton appears to be an inaccurate statement from Darcie's 'Annals of Elizabeth,' wherein it is said that Rowland York was the first that brought | into England "that wicked and pernicious fashion to fight in the fields, in duels, with a rapier called a tucke, only for the thrust," &c. Douce distinguishes between the rapier gene- rally, and the tucke for the thrust. It appears, however, from other authorities, that the rapier was in use in the time of Henry VIII.; and Douce holds that "it is impossible to decide that this weapon, which, with its name, we received from the French, might not have been known as early as the reign of Henry IV., or even of Richard II.” 12 SCENE II." I will not lend thee a penny." This passage requires no comment; but some of our readers may be pleased with the repre- sentation of the silver penny of Elizabeth. 13 SCENE II." Coach after coach.” There appears little doubt that the coach first appeared about 1564; although the question was subsequently raised "whether the devil brought tobacco into England in a coach, or else brought a coach in a fog or mist of tobacco." Stow thus describes the introduction of this novelty, which was to change the face of Eng- lish society: "In the year 1564, Guilliam Boonen, a Dutchman, became the queen's coach- man; and was the first that brought the use of coaches into England. After a while, divers great ladies, with as great jealousy of the queen's displeasure, made them coaches, and rid up and down the countries in them, to the great admi- ration of all the beholders; but then by little and little they grew usual among the nobility and others of sort, and within twenty years became a great trade of coach-making." In little more than thirty years a Bill was brought into Parliament "to restrain the excessive use of coaches." SCENE II.] 157 MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. 14 SCENE II.—“ Nay, which is more, pensioners." | 15 SCENE II.—“ Hath sent your worship a morn- Pensioners might have been put higher than earls by Mistress Quickly, on account of their splendid dress. Shakspere alludes to this în A Midsummer Night's Dream :' "The cowslips tall her pensioners be, In their gold coats spots you see.” But the pensioners of Elizabeth were also men of large fortune. Tyrwhitt illustrates the pas- sage before us, from Gervase Holles's 'Life of the First Earl of Clare: "I have heard the Earl of Clare say, that when he was pensioner to the queen, he did not know a worse man of the whole band than himself; and that all the world knew he had then an inheritance of 4000l. a year." ing's draught of sack." Presents of wine were often sent from one guest in a tavern to another,—sometimes by way of a friendly memorial, and sometimes as an introduction to acquaintance. "Ben Jonson was at a tavern, and in comes Bishop Corbet (but not so then) into the next room. Ben Jonson calls for a quart of raw wine, and gives it to the tapster. 'Sirrah,' says he, 'carry this to the gentleman in the next chamber, and tell him, I sacrifice my service to him.' The fellow did, and in those words. 'Friend,' says Dr. Corbet, 'I thank him for his love: but pr'ythee tell him from me that he is mistaken; for sacri- fices are always burnt.'"-Merry Passages and Jeasts, Harl. MSS. 6395. 4171 [Windsor as it is.] LOCAL ILLUSTRATION. It is not very easy to define the spot where, according to the mischievous arrangement of mine Host of the Garter, Dr. Caius waited for Sir Hugh Evans. Sir Hugh, we know, waited for Dr. Caius near Frogmore; for the Host tells Shallow, and Page, and Slender, "Go you through the town to Frogmore;" and he takes the doctor to meet Sir Hugh "about the fields. through Frogmore." The stage-direction for this third scene of the second Act is "Windsor Park." But had Caius waited in Windsor Park he would have been near Frogmore, and it would not have been necessary to go through the town, or through the fields. We should be inclined, therefore, to place the locality of the COMEDIES.-VOL. 11. (C third scene in the meadows near the Thames on the west side of Windsor, and we have altered the stage-direction accordingly. Frogmore was probably a small village in Shakspere's time; and at any rate it had its farm-house, where Anne Page was a feasting." "Old Windsor way" was farther than Frogmore from Windsor, so that Simple had little chance of finding Caius in that direction. The park-the little park as it is now called-undoubtedly came close to the castle ditch on the south-east. Some of the oaks not a quarter of a mile from the castle, and which appear to have formed part of an avenue, are of great antiquity. Of the sup- posed locality of Herne's Oak in this park we L 158 [ACT III. ILLUSTRATIONS. shall speak in the fifth Act. The forest, per- haps, stretched up irregularly towards the castle, unenclosed, with meadows and common fields interposing. The connection between the forest and the castle by the Long Walk was made in the reign of Anne, the town receiving a grant for the property then enclosed. The description of Windsor nearest to the period of this comedy, is that of Lord Surrey's Poem, 1546, a stanza of which we have quoted in 'Henry IV., Part II.' Our readers will not be displeased to have it presented to them entire :- So cruel prison how could betide, alas! As proud Windsor? where I in lust and joy, With a king's son, my childish'years did pass, In greater feast than Priam's sons of Troy. Where each sweet place returns a taste full sour. The large green courts, where we were wont to hoveª, With eyes cast up unto the Maiden's Tower, And easy sighs, such as folk draw in love. The stately seats, the ladies bright of hue, C The dances short, long tales of great delight; With words, and looks, that tigers could but rue, Where each of us did plead the other's right. The palme-playe", where, despoiled for the game, With dazed eyes oft we by gleams of love Have miss'd the ball, and got sight of our dame, To bait her eyes, which kept the leads above. The gravell'd ground, with sleeves tied on the helm, On foaming horse with swords and friendly hearts; With chere, as though one should another whelm, Where we have fought, and chased oft with darts. With silver drops the meads yet spread for ruth; In active games of nimbleness and strength, Where we did strain, trained with swarms of youth, Our tender limbs, that yet shot up in length. The secret groves, which oft we made resound Of pleasant plaint, and of our ladies' praise; Recording soft what grace each one had found, What hope of speed, what dread of long delays. The wild forest, the clothed holts with green; With reins avail'd, and swiftly-breathed horse, With cry of hounds, and merry blasts between, Where we did chase the fearful hart of force. a Linger, or hover. b Tennis-court. с c Stript. A Journal of the Secretary of the Duke of Würtemberg contains the following curious description of the Parks of Windsor, in 1592 :— "Her Majesty appointed an elderly respect- able English nobleman to attend upon your Princely Grace, and required and ordered the same not only to shew to your Princely Grace the splendidly beautiful and royal castle of Windsor, but also to make the residence pleasant and merry with shooting and hunting the nu- merous herds of game; for it is well known that the aforesaid place, Windsor, has upwards of sixty parks adjoining each other, full of fallow- deer and other game, of all sorts of colours, which may be driven from one park (all being enclosed with hedges) to another, and thus one can enjoy a splendid and royal sport. "The hunters (deer or park-keepers) who live in separate but excellent houses, as had been appointed, made excellent sport for your Princely Grace. In the first Park your Princely Grace shot a fallow deer through the thigh, and it was soon after captured by the dogs. In the next you hunted a stag for a long time over a broad and pleasant plain, with a pack of re- markably good hounds; your Princely Grace first shot it with an English crossbow, and the hounds at length outwearied and captured it. "In the third you noosed a stag, but some- what too quickly, for he was caught too soon, and almost before he came right out upon the plain. "These three deer were sent to Windsor, and were presented to your Princely Grace: one of these was done justice to in the apartments of Monsieur de Beauvois, the French am- bassador."* a This journal is described in 'Studies of Shakspere,' p. 250. ACT III. 16 SCENE I.-" To shallow rivers, to whose falls." THE exquisite little poem whence this couplet is quoted has, strange to say, never yet, as a whole, been "married to immortal notes;" though the first, second, fourth, and fifth stanzas are set as a four-part glee by Webbe, and, of the kind, a more beautiful composition cannot be named. Sir John Hawkins says, "The tune to which the former (i. e., Marlowe's poem) was sung, I have lately discovered in a MS. as old as Shak- spere's time, and it is as follows." He then gives the melody only, as in the next page. To this we SCENE I.] 159 MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. have added a simple base and accompaniment, | written, the air has merit, though the false ac- such as we can imagine the composer himself centuation, the contempt or ignorance of pro- designed. For the period in which it was sody, in the ninth bar, will be obvious to all. 4 Come live with me, and be my love, And we will 4 88 9:3 64 doto all d the pleasures prove, That hills and val leys, dale and field, And all the crag gy moun - tains yield. d "When as I sat in Pabylon.” The lines which Sir Hugh Evans hums over | troducing a passage from the old version of the are a scrap of a song which we find in that 137th Psalm, delicious pastoral scene of Izaak Walton, where the anglers meet the milk-maid and her mother, Warburton, who had the good taste to print in and hear them sing "That smooth song which his edition of Shakspere this poem, with the was made by Kit Marlowe, now at least fifty answer to it, which was made by Sir Walter years ago; old fashioned poetry, but Raleigh, in his younger days," according to choicely good." Sir Hugh Evans in his Walton, assigns that of 'The Passionate Shep- “trempling of mind" misquotes the lines, in-herd' to Shakspere himself. It is found in the • (6 L 2 ILLUSTRATIONS. [ACT III. སཡལ་ན་ 160 edition of Shakspere's Sonnets, printed by Jag- gard in 1599; but is given to Marlowe in England's Helicon,' 1600. We cannot omit this "old fashioned poetry, but choicely good." The verses are variously printed in different collections. Our copy is taken from Percy's 'Reliques; with the exception of the stanza in brackets. THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD TO HIS LOVE. "Come live with me, and be my love, And we will all the pleasures prove That hills and vallies, dale and field, And all the craggy mountains yield. There will we sit upon the rocks, And see the shepherds feed their flocks, By shallow rivers, to whose falls Melodious birds sing madrigals: There will I make thee beds of roses, With a thousand fragrant posies, A cap of flowers, and a kirtle Imbroider'd all with leaves of myrtle; A gown made of the finest wool, Which from our pretty lambs we pull; Slippers lined choicely for the cold; With buckles of the purest gold; A belt of straw and ivy buds, With coral clasps, and amber studs: And if these pleasures may thee move, Then live with me, and be my love. [Thy silver dishes for thy meat, As precious as the gods do eat, Shall on an ivory table be Prepar'd each day for thee and me.] The shepherd swains shall dance and sing, For thy delight each May morning: If these delights thy mind may move, Then live with me, and be my love." 17 SCENE III.“ Bucklersbury in simple time." Bucklersbury, in the time of Shakspere, was chiefly inhabited by druggists, who then did the office of the herbalist, and filled the air with the fragrance of rosemary and lavender in "simple time." The materials for the following repre- sentation are derived from Aggas's Map of Lon- don, 1568. கபா 5,32\. [Bucklersbury.] MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. 161 • • • • LOCAL ILLUSTRATION. When Mistress Ford is plotting the adventure of the buck-basket with Mistress Page, she directs her servants thus: "Take this basket on your shoulders that done, trudge with it in all haste, and carry it among the whitsters in Datchet Mead, and there empty it in the muddy ditch, close by the Thames side." When Fal- staff soliloquizes upon his misfortune, he says, Have I lived to be carried in a basket like a barrow of butcher's offal, and to be thrown into the Thames? The rogues slighted me into the river. I had been drowned, but that the shore was shelvy and shallow." Again, to Ford, he says, "A couple of Ford's knaves, his hinds, were called forth by their mistress, to carry me in the name of foul clothes to Datchet lane." Datchet Mead, although the name is not now in use, was all that flat ground lying under the north terrace, and which is now a portion of the Park, given to the public, lying to the east of the Railway. The street which leads to it is still called Datchet Lane. The mead was enclosed in the time of William III., but before that the road passed across it as it does now. It is probable, therefore, that the shore being "shelvy and shallow," the Thames overflowed the mead in part; so that the whit- sters might "bleach their summer smocks" upon the wide plain which the Thames still occasionally inundates. Probably some creek flowed into it, which mistress Ford denominated a "muddy ditch." The most ancient repre- sentation which we can find of this locality, is a print published in the time of Queen Anne, in which the mead is represented as enclosed by a wall, within which is a triple belt of elms, with two formal avenues at equal distances, and an enormous embanked pond in the centre. The river below Windsor Bridge divides into two streams as at present. The locality of the de- sign at the end of this Act is placed as near as may be to Datchet Lane. We subjoin a view of the old bridge connecting Windsor and Eton, as given in this very curious print. The vignette which we have given at the end of Act I., as the scene where Mr. Page trained his "fallow greyhound," is the western extremity of Run- nemede. CGAY. Se 162 [ACT IV. ILLUSTRATIONS. ACT IV. 18 SCENE II.—“ I spy a great peard under her muffler." THE muffler covered a portion of the face- sometimes the lower part, sometimes the upper. It was enacted, says Douce, by a Scottish statute in 1457, that "na na woman cum to kirk, nor mercat, with her face mussaled, or covered that scho may not be kend." Yet the ladies of Scotland, according to Warton, continued muz- zled during three reigns. Douce gives us the following figures-the first and third from Josh. Ammon's Theatrum Mulierum,—the second, from Speed's Map of England, being the cos- tume of a countrywoman in the time of James I. 19 SCENE V.-" His standing bed and truckle bed." The standing bed was for the master, the truckle bed for the servant. (See Illustration to 'Romeo and Juliet,' Act II.) k MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. 163 LOCAL ILLUSTRATION. Eton was probably a village in the time of Henry IV. It is scarcely necessary to say that the present college was founded by Henry VI. The church where Anne Page was "immediately to marry" with Slender, was probably the ancient parish church, which has long since fallen to decay. The tale of Sir Hugh Evans of the "three couzin germans, that has cozened all the hosts of Readings, of Maidenhead, of Cole- brook, of horses and money," requires no illus- tration. Shakspere was probably familiar with the road from London to Maidenhead, in his journeys to Stratford, through Oxford. པ༔ [Eton.] JJACKSONS 164 LOCAL ILLUSTRATION. [Oak, and Avenue of Elms, Windsor Home Park.] ACT V. LOCAL ILLUSTRATION. many non-believers. We have bestowed some care in the investigation of the question; and we shall endeavour to present to our readers the result of our inquiries in connection with our own early recollections. THE question whether the Herne's Oak of Shak- | many believers in the present Herne's Oak, and spere is at present existing, or whether it was cut down more than sixty years ago, has been a subject of much controversy. Mr. Jesse, the author of those very agreeable volumes, 'Glean- ings in Natural History,' maintains that the identical tree is still standing. The 'Quarterly Review,' on the contrary, asserts that the tree has been cut down. At Windsor there are The memory of the editor carries him back to Windsor as it was at the beginning of this century. The castle was then almost unin- MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. 165 habited. The king and his family lived in an ugly barrack-looking building called the Queen's Lodge, which stood opposite the south front of the castle. The great quadrangle, the terrace, and every part of the Home Park, was a free play-ground for the boys of Windsor. The path to Datchet passed immediately under the south terrace, direct from west to east, and it abruptly descended into the lower park, at a place called Dodd's Hill. From this path several paths diverged in a south-easterly direction towards the dairy at Frogmore; and one of these went close by a little dell, in which long rank grass, and fern, and low thorns, grew in profusion. Near this dell stood several venerable oaks. Our earliest recollections associate this place with birds'-nests and mushrooms; but some five or six years later we came to look here for the "oak with great ragg'd horns," to which we had been introduced in the newly-discovered world of Shakspere. There was an oak, whose upper branches were much decayed, standing some thirty or forty yards from the deep side of the dell; and there was another oak with fewer branches, whose top was also bare, standing in the line of the avenue near the park wall. We have heard each of these oaks called Herne's Oak; but the application of the name to the oak in the avenue is certainly more recent. That tree, as we first recollect it, had not its trunk bare. Its dimensions were comparatively small, and it seemed to us to have no pretensions to the honour which it occasionally received. The old people, however, used to say that Herne's Oak was cut down or blown down, and certainly our own impressions were that Herne's Oak was gone. One thing however consoled us. The little dell was assuredly the "pit hard by Herne's Oak" in which Anne Page and her troop of fairies "couched with obscured lights." And so we for ever associated this dell with Shakspere. Years passed on-Windsor ceased to be fa- miliar to us. When Mr. Jesse, however, pub- lished his second series of Gleanings in 1834, we were pleased to find this passage: "The most interesting tree, at Windsor, for there can be little doubt of its identity, is the celebrated Herne's Oak. There is indeed a story prevalent in the neighbourhood respecting its destruction. It was stated to have been felled by command of his late Majesty George III. about fifty years ago, under peculiar circumstances. The whole story, the details of which it is unnecessary to enter upon, appeared so improbable, that I have taken some pains to ascertain the inaccuracy of it, and have now every reason to believe that it is perfectly unfounded." Towards the end of 1838, the following pas- sage in The Quarterly Review,' came to destroy the little hope which we had indulged that Mr. Jesse had restored to us Herne's Oak :- Among his anecdotes of celebrated English oaks, we were surprised to find Mr. Loudon adopting (at least so we understand him) an apocryphal story about Herne's Oak, given in the lively pages of Mr. Jesse's Gleanings. That gentleman, if he had taken any trouble, might have ascertained that the tree in question was cut down one morning, by order of King George III., when in a state of great, but transient, excitement; the circumstance caused much regret and astonishment at the time, and was commented on in the newspapers. The oak which Mr. Jesse would decorate with Shak- sperian honours stands at a considerable distance from the real Simon Pure. Every old woman in Windsor knows all about the facts." Mr. Jesse replied to this statement, in a letter addressed to the editor of the 'Times,' dated Nov. 28, 1838. Mr. Jesse says that the story thus given was often repeated by George IV., who, however, always added that tree was supposed to have been Herne's oak, but it was not.' Mr. Jesse adds, that the tree thus cut down, which stood near the castle, was an elm. The tree which Mr. Jesse describes as Herne's Oak, is pointed out in the following passage of his letter to the Times.' King William III. was a great planter of avenues, and to him we are indebted for those in Hampton Court and Bushy Parks, and also those at Windsor. All these have been made in a straight line, with the exception of one in the Home Park, which diverges a little, so as to take in Herne's Oak as a part of the avenue-a proof, at least, that William III. preferred distorting his avenue to cutting down the tree in order to make way for it in a direct line, affording another instance of the care taken of this tree 150 years ago.": The engraving of the oak in the avenue of elms is a faithful delineation of the oak which Mr. Jesse calls Herne's. It is now per- fectly bare down to the very roots. "In this state," says Mr. Jesse, “it has been, probably, long before the recollection of the oldest person living." He adds "it has always been protected by a strong fence round it." In our own recol- 166 LOCAL ILLUSTRATION. lection this tree was unprotected by any fence, | under whose care he was placed in 1792. Mr. and its upper part only was withered and with- | Delamotte has often heard his master lament out bark. So far from Herne the hunter having blasted it, it appears to have suffered a prema- ture decay. This tree is of small girth com- pared with other trees about it. It is not more than fifteen feet in circumference at the largest part, while there is a magnificent oak at about 200 yards distance whose girth is nearly thirty feet. The engraving at the end of this notice is a representation of that beautiful tree. The subject, since the publication of our first edition, has been investigated with great acute- ness by the late Dr. Bromet; and his conclusions were given in a very interesting letter in the 'Gentleman's Magazine' for April, 1841. He collected a variety of testimony from living persons, which goes to prove that a tree called Herne's Oak was cut down more than sixty years ago, and that the tree which now pretends to the honour had acquired the name in very modern times:-"its present name was not con- ferred upon it until some time after the demoli- tion of another old tree, formerly possessing that title." This entirely agrees with our own personal recollections of the talk of Windsor about Herne's Oak. But Dr. Bromet justly observes that the "strongest proof" against the claims of Mr. Jesse's oak is "Collier's map of 1742, which actually points out 'Sir John Falstaff's oak' as being, not in the present ave- nue, but outside it, near the edge of the pit." Mr. Collier " was a resident in the immediate vicinity of the tree he thus distinguishes;"--and his map is therefore an indisputable "record of its locality and character a hundred years ago." So far, we think, the proof is absolute that the oak in the avenue is not Herne's Oak. It was not as we believe so called by general tradition even in very recent times: it certainly was not so called in Collier's 'Plan of Windsor Little Park' in 1742, in which plan another tree, standing some yards away from the avenue, is remarkable enough to bear the name of Sir John Falstaff's Oak. that Herne's Oak had been cut down, to the great annoyance, as Mr. West stated, of the King and the royal family. According to Mr. West's account of the circumstance, the King had directed all the trees in the park to be num- bered; and upon the representation of the bailiff, whose name was Robinson, that certain trees encumbered the ground, directions were given to fell those trees, and Herne's Oak was amongst the condemned. Mr. West, who was residing at Windsor at the time, traced this oak to the spot where it was conveyed, and ob- tained a large piece of one of its knotty arms, which Mr. Delamotte has often seen. Mr. Ralph West, however, the eldest son of the President, who, as a youth, was distinguished for his love of art, and his great skill as a drafts- man, made a drawing of this tree before it was felled, and Mr. Delamotte's drawing, which he kindly granted us permission to engrave, was a copy of this valuable sketch. The locality of the tree, as indicated by the position of the castle in this sketch, perfectly corresponds with the best traditions. We might here dismiss the subject, had we not been favoured with a communication, in accordance with the views which we have already taken. Mr. Nicholson, the eminent landscape draftsman, has furnished Mr. Crofton Croker, who has taken a kind interest in our work, with the following information: — About the year 1800, he was on a visit to the Dowager Countess of Kingston, at Old Windsor; and his mornings were chiefly employed in sketching, or rather making studies of the old trees in the Forest. This circumstance one day led the conversation of some visitors to Lady Kingston to Herne's Oak. Mrs. Bonfoy and her daughter, Lady Ely, were present; and as they were very much with the royal family, Mr. Nicholson requested Lady Ely to procure for him any information that she could from the King, respecting Herne's Oak, which, con- sidering his Majesty's tenacious memory and familiarity with Windsor, the King could pro- The engraving of an oak at the head of Act V. is copied without alteration from a drawing made in the year 1800, by Mr. W. Dela-bably give better than any one else. motte, the Professor of Landscape Drawing to the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, whose sketches and etchings of trees are amongst the most beautiful productions of English art. Mr. Delamotte was a pupil of the late venerable Benjamin West, President of the Royal Academy, In a very few days, Lady Ely informed Mr. Nicholson that she had made the inquiry he wished of the King, who told her that "when he (George III.) was a young man, it was repre- sented to him that there were a number of old oaks in the park which had become unsightly MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. 167 objects, and that it would be desirable to take them down; he gave immediate directions that such trees as were of this description should be removed; but he was afterwards sorry that he had given such an order inadvertently, because he found that, among the rest, the remains of Herne's Oak had been destroyed." WHIMPER [Oak, near the site of Herne's Oak.1 168 COSTUME. COSTUME. The Young 'Squire may furnish us with the dress of Master Fenton. He is described as wearing a short gown, with sleeves long and wide, and embroidered "as it were a mead, all full of fresh flowers white and red." Falstaff, when dressed as Herne the Hunter, should be attired like his Yeoman, in a coat and hood of green, with a horn slung in a green baldrick. THE Costume of this Comedy is, of course, the and a white silk gipciere or purse hanging at same with that of the two parts of Henry IV.,' | his girdle. and, therefore, for its general description we must refer our readers to the notice affixed to Part I. of that play. Chaucer, however, who wrote his 'Canterbury Tales' towards the close of the previous reign, gives us a few hints for the habit of some of the principal characters in the Merry Wives.' Dr. Caius, for instance, should be clothed, like the Doctor of Physic, "in sanguine and in perse," (i. e., in purple and light blue) the gown being "lined with tafata and sendal." In the Testament of Cresseyde' Chaucer speaks of a Physician in "a scarlet gown,” and “furred well, as such a one ought to be;" but scarlet and purple were terms used indifferently one for the other, and the phrase "scarlet red” was generally used to designate that colour which we now call scarlet. The Franklin or Country gentleman the Master Page, or Master Ford of this play-is merely said to have worn an anelace or knife, The Wife of Bath is said to have worn, on a Sunday, or holyday, kerchiefs on her head of the finest manufacture, but in such a quantity as to weigh nearly a pound.—When abroad, she wore “a hat, as broad as is a buckler or a targe.” Her stockings were of fine scarlet red, and her shoes "full moist and new." The high-crowned hats and point lace aprons, in which the Merry Wives of Windsor have been usually depicted, are of the seventeenth, instead of the fifteenth, century. HARVEY AS YOU TIKETT GROV شا T.WILLIAMS,S 0. Алие INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 'AS YOU LIKE IT' was first printed in the folio collection of 1623. There appears to have been an intention to publish it sepa- rately, for we find it entered in the registers of the Stationers' Company, together with 'Henry V.' and 'Much Ado about Nothing.' There is no exact date to this entry, but it is conjectured to have been made in 1600. The text of the original folio is, upon the whole, a very correct one. Of all Shakspere's comedies we are inclined to think that 'As You Like It' is the most read. It possesses not the deep tragic interest of 'The Merchant of Venice,' nor the brilliant wit and diverting humour of Much Ado about Nothing,' nor the prodigal luxuriance of fancy which belongs to A Midsummer- Night's Dream,' nor the wild legendary romance which imparts its charm to ‘A Winter's Tale,' nor the grandeur of the poeti- cal creation of 'The Tempest.' The peculiar attraction of As You Like It' lies, perhaps, in the circumstance that "in no other play do we find the bright imagination and fasci- nating grace of Shakspere's youth so mingled with the thoughtfulness of his maturer age.” This is the character which Mr. Hallam gives of this comedy, and it appears to us a very just one. But in another place Mr. Hallam says, "There seems to have been a period of Shakspere's life when his heart was ill at ease and ill content with the world or his own conscience. The memory of hours misspent, the pang of affection misplaced or unrequited, the experience of man's worser nature, which intercourse with ill-chosen * 171 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. seek the tone of the poet's mind, and to that have our own minds attuned. Mr. Campbell, speaking of the characters of this comedy, says, "Our hearts are so stricken by these benevolent beings that we easily forgive the other more culpable but at last repentant characters." Ay, now am I in Arden!" Touchstone thought that when he was at home he was in a better place. But here is the home of every true lover of poetry. What a world of exquisite images do Shakspere's pictures of this forest call up! He gives us no posi- tive set descriptions of trees, and flowers, and rivulets, and fountains, such as we may cut out and paste into an album. But a touch here and there carries us into the heart of his living scenery. And so, whenever it is our happy lot to be wandering "Under the shade of melancholy boughs," we think of the oak beneath which Jaques lay along,- "whose antique root peeps out Upon the brook that brawls along this wood;" and of the dingle where Touchstone was with Audrey and her goats; and of the associates, by chance or circumstances, pecu- liarly teaches;-these, as they sank down into the depths of his great mind, seem not only to have inspired into it the conception of Lear' and 'Timon,' but that of one pri- mary character, the censurer of mankind. This type is first seen in the philosophic melancholy of Jaques, gazing with an un- diminished serenity, and with a gaiety of fancy, though not of manners, on the follies of the world. It assumes a graver cast in the exiled Duke of the same play." Mr. Hallam then notices the like type in 'Mea- sure for Measure' and the altered 'Hamlet,' as well as in Lear' and 'Timon;' and adds, "In the later plays of Shakspere, especially in Macbeth' and 'The Tempest,' much of moral speculation will be found, but he has never returned to this type of character in the personages." Without entering into a general examination of Mr. Hallam's theory, which evidently includes a very wide range of discussion, we must venture to think that the type of character first seen in Jaques, and presenting a graver cast in the exiled Duke, is so modified by the whole conduct of the action of this comedy, by its opposite cha- racterisation, and by its prevailing tone of reflection, that it offers not the slightest evi- dence of having been produced at a period of the poet's life "when his heart was ill at ease and ill content with the world or his own conscience." The charm which this play appears to us to possess in a most remark- able degree, even when compared with other works of Shakspere, is that, while we behold "the philosophic eye, turned inward on the mysteries of human nature”—(we use Mr. Hallam's own forcible expression)—we also see the serene brow and the playful smile, which tell us that "the philosophic eye belongs to one who, however above us, is still akin to us—who tolerates our follies, who compassionates even our faults, who mingles in our gaiety, who rejoices in our happiness; "tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, who leads us to scenes of surpassing loveli- Sermons in stones, and good in everything; ness, where we may forget the painful lessons which builds a throne for intellect "under of the world, and introduces us to characters the greenwood tree," and there, by character- whose generosity, and faithfulness, andistic satire, gently indicates to us the vanity affection, and simplicity, may obliterate the sorrows of our experience of man's worser nature." It is not in Jaques alone, but in the entire dramatic group, that we must "" "Sheepcote fenc'd about with olive-trees," where dwelt Rosalind and Celia; and of the hawthorns and brambles upon which Orlando hung odes and elegies. In this delicious pastoral the real is blended with the poetical in such intimate union, that the highest poetry appears to be as essentially natural as the most familiar gossip; and the loftiest philosophy is interwoven with the occurrences of every-day life, so as to teach us that there is a philosophical aspect of the commonest things. It is this spirit which informs Shak- pere's forest of Arden with such life, and truth, and beauty, as belongs to no other representation of pastoral scenes; which takes us into the depths of solitude, and shows us how the feelings of social life alone can give us "" of the things which bind us to the world; whilst he teaches us that life has its happi- ness in the cultivation of the affections,-in. content and independence of spirit. M 2 PERSONS REPRESENTED. DUKE, living in exile. Appears, Act II. sc. 1; sc. 7. Act V. sc. 4. FREDERICK, brother to the Duke, and usurper of his dominions. Appears, Act I. sc. 2; sc. 3. Act II. sc. 2. Act III. sc. 1. AMIENS, a lord attending upon the Duke in his banishment. Appears, Act II. sc. 1; sc. 5; sc. 7. Act V. sc. 4. JAQUES, a lord attending upon the Duke in his banishment. Appears, Act II. sc. 5; sc. 7. Act III. sc. 2; sc. 3. Act IV. sc. 1; sc. 2. Act V. sc. 4. LE BEAU, a courtier attending upon Fre- derick. Appears, Act I. sc. 2. CHARLES, wrestler to Frederick. Appears, Act I. sc. 1; sc. 2. OLIVER, son of Sir Rowland de Bois. Appears, Act I. sc. 1. Act III. sc. 1. Act IV. sc. 3. Act V. sc. 2; sc. 4. JAQUES, son of Sir Rowland de Bois. Appears, Act V. sc. 4. ORLANDO, son of Sir Rowland de Bois. Appears, Act I. sc. 1; sc. 2. Act II. sc. 3; sc. 6; sc. 7. Act III. sc. 2. Act IV. sc. 1. Act V. sc. 2; sc. 4. ADAM, servant to Oliver. Appears, Act I. sc. 1. Act II. sc. 3; sc. 6; sc.7. DENNIS, servant to Oliver. Appears, Act I. sc. 1. TOUCHSTONE, a clown. Appears, Act I. sc. 2. Act II. sc. 4. Act III. sc. 2; sc. 3. Act V. sc. 1; sc. 3; sc. 4. SIR OLIVER MARTEXT, a vicar.. Appears, Act III. sc. 3. CORIN, a shepherd. Appears, Act II. sè. 4. Act III. sc. 2; sc. 4; sc. 5. Act V. sc. 1. SILVIUS, a shepherd. ; Appears, Act II. sc. 4. Act III. sc. 5. Act IV. sc. 2. Act V. sc. 2; sc. 4. WILLIAM, a country fellow, in love with Audrey. Appears, Act V. sc. 1. A person representing Hymen. Appears, Act V. sc. 4. ROSALIND, daughter to the banished Duke. 4. Appears, Act I. sc. 2; sc. 3. Act II. sc. Act III. sc. 2; sc. 4; sc. 5. Act IV. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act V. sc. 2; sc. 4. CELIA, daughter to Frederick. Appears, Act I. sc. 2; sc. 3. Act II. sc. 4. Act III. sc. 2; sc. 4; sc. 5. Act IV. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act V. sc. 4. PHEBE, a shepherdess. Appears, Act III. sc. 5. Act V. sc. 2; sc. 4. AUDREY, a country wench. Appears, Act III. sc. 3. Act V. sc. 1; sc. 3; sc. 4. SCENE, FIRST, NEAR OLIVER'S HOUSE; AFTERWARDS, PARTLY IN THE USURPER'S COURT, AND PARTLY IN THE FOREST OF ARDEN. JJACKSON AK [SCENE I. "Wilt thou lay hands on me, villain ?"] ACT I. SCENE I.—An Orchard, near Oliver's House. Enter ORLANDO and ADAM. ORL. As I remember, Adam, it was upon this fashion bequeathed me by will, but poor a thousand crowns; and, as thou say'st, charged my brother, on his blessing, to breed me wella: and there begins my sadness. My brother Jaques he keeps at school, and report speaks goldenly of his profit: for my a We print this passage as in the original—the folio of 1623. It has been subjected to various alterations. In the folio of 1632 "poor a" is changed to "a poor." The speaker is quoting the will; and poor is the adjective to a thousand crowns. If the bequest had been two thousand the change would not have been made; a is one. The modern editors must also change the easy conversational tone to a very precise mode of expression; and so they read-"As I remember, Adam, it was upon this fashion. He bequeathed me by will but a poor thousand crowns, and as thou say'st charged my brother," &c. The allusive construction is justified by "as thou say'st." 174 [ACT I. AS YOU LIKE IT. a part, he keeps me rustically at home, or, to speak more properly, stays ª me here at home unkept. For call you that keeping for a gentleman of my birth, that differs not from the stalling of an ox? His horses are bred better; for, besides that they are fair with their feeding, they are taught their manage, and to that end riders dearly hired: but I, his brother, gain nothing under him but growth; for the which his animals on his dunghills are as much bound to him as I. Besides this nothing that he so plentifully gives me, the something that nature gave me his countenance seems to take from me: he lets me feed with.his hinds, bars me the place of a brother, and, as much as in him lies, mines my gentility with my education. This is it, Adam, that grieves me; and the spirit of my father, which I think is within me, begins to mutiny against this servitude: I will no longer endure it, though yet I know no wise remedy how to avoid it. Enter OLIVER. ADAM. Yonder comes my master, your brother. b ORL. Go apart, Adam, and thou shalt hear how he will shake me up. OLI. Now, sir! what make you hered? ORL. Nothing: I am not taught to make anything. OLI. What mar you then, sir? ORL. Marry, sir, I am helping you to mar that which God made, a poor unworthy brother of yours, with idleness. OLI. Marry, sir, be better employed, and be naught awhile e. ORL. Shall I keep your hogs, and eat husks with them? What prodigal portion have I spent, that I should come to such penury? OLI. Know you where you are, sir? ORL. O, sir, very well: here in your orchard. OLI. Know you before whom, sir? ORL. Ay, better than him I am before knows me. I know you are my eldest a Stays-detains. b His countenance-his behaviour-his bearing. A countenance, says Johnson, may be good or bad. C Mines-undermines-seeks to destroy. a What make you here? We have the same play upon the word, between the King and Cos- tard, in 'Love's Labour 's Lost,' Act IV., Scene 3:— "KING. Cost. Nay, it makes What makes treason here? nothing, sir." Tale of a Tub' we have— • Be naught awhile. In Ben Jonson's "Peace and be naught! I think the woman's phrensic." In his 'Bartholomew Fair' we find, "Leave the bottle behind you, and be curst awhile." There are many examples in the old dramatists which clearly show that be naught or be nought was a petty malediction; and thus Oliver says no more than-be better employed, and be hanged to you. This is the substance of Gifford's sensible note upon the passage in 'Bartholomew Fair.' Orlando receives be naught in the sense of be dissipated; and refers to the parable of the Pro- digal Son. f * Him in the original. The ordinary reading is he. It is mere pedantry to correct, as the phrase is, these grammatical errors in the use of the personal pronoun. d 1 SCENE I.] 175 AS YOU LIKE IT. brother; and, in the gentle condition of blood, you should so know me: The courtesy of nations allows you my better, in that you are the first-born; but the same tradition takes not away my blood, were there twenty brothers betwixt us: I have as much of my father in me, as you; albeit, I confess, your coming before me is nearer to his reverence. OLI. What, boy! ORL. Come, come, elder brother, you are too young in this a. OLI. Wilt thou lay hands on me, villain? ORL. I am no villain: I am the youngest son of sir Rowland de Bois; he was my father; and he is thrice a villain that says such a father begot villains: Wert thou not my brother, I would not take this hand from thy throat till this other had pulled out thy tongue for saying so; thou hast railed on thyself. ADAM. Sweet masters, be patient; for your father's remembrance, be at accord. OLI. Let me go, I say. ORL. I will not, till I please: you shall hear me. My father charged you in his will to give me good education: you have trained me like a peasant, obscuring and hiding from me all gentlemanlike qualities: the spirit of my father grows strong in me, and I will no longer endure it: therefore allow me such exercises as may become a gentleman, or give me the poor allottery my father left me by testament; with that I will go buy my fortunes. OLI. And what wilt thou do? beg, when that is spent? Well, sir, get you in: I will not long be troubled with you: you shall have some part of your will: I pray you, leave me. ORL. I will no further offend you than becomes me for my good. OLI. Get you with him, you old dog. ADAM. Is old dog my reward? Most true, I have lost my teeth in your service.—God be with my old master! he would not have spoke such a word. [Exeunt ORLANDO and ADAM. OLI. Is it even so? begin you to grow upon me? I will physic your 'rankness, and yet give no thousand crowns neither. Holla, Dennis! DEN. Calls your worship? Enter DENNIS. } OLI. Was not Charles, the duke's wrestler, here to speak with me? DEN. So please you, he is here at the door, and importunes access to you. OLI. Call him in. [Exit DENNIS.]—'T will be a good way; and to-morrow the wrestling is. a When Orlando says nearer to his reverence,” Oliver is offended by the sarcastic employment of a word which is used to denote the condition of an aged man,-as in 'Much Ado about No- thing,' "Knavery cannot hide himself in such reverence." He retorts by calling Orlando "boy;" upon which the younger either seizes him, or makes a threatening movement towards the after- seizure, in vindication of his manhood. b Villain. We have here the two meanings of the word. Oliver uses it in the sense of worth- less fellow; Orlando in that of one of mean birth,-the original sense. ! 176 [ACT I. AS YOU LIKE IT. Enter CHARLES. CHA. Good morrow to your worship. OLI. Good monsieur Charles! -what's the news at the new court? CHA. There's no news at the court, sir, but the old news: that is, the old duke is banished by his younger brother the new duke: and three or four loving lords have put themselves into voluntary exile with him, whose lands and revenues enrich the new duke; therefore he gives them good leave to wander. OLI. Can you tell, if Rosalind, the duke's daughter, be banished with her father? CHA. O, no; for the duke's daughter, her cousin, so loves her, being ever from their cradles bred together, that she would have followed her exile, or have died to stay behind her. She is at the court, and no less beloved of her uncle than his own daughter; and never two ladies loved as they do. OLI. Where will the old duke live? CHA. They say he is already in the forest of Ardenª, and a many merry men with him; and there they live like the old Robin Hood of England: they say many young gentlemen flock to him every day, and fleet the time carelessly, as they did in the golden world'. OLI. What, you wrestle to-morrow before the new duke? CHA. Marry, do I, sir; and I came to acquaint you with a matter. I am given, sir, secretly to understand that your younger brother, Orlando, hath a disposition to come in disguised against me to try a fall: To-morrow, sir, I wrestle for my credit; and he that escapes me without some broken limb shall acquit him well. Your brother is but young, and tender; and, for your love, I would be loth to foil him, as I must, for my own honour, if he come in: therefore, out of my love to you, I came hither to acquaint you withal; that either you might stay him from his intendment, or brook such disgrace well as he shall run into; in that it is a thing of his own search, and altogether against my will. OLI. Charles, I thank thee for thy love to me, which thou shalt find I will most kindly requite. I had myself notice of my brother's purpose herein, and have by underhand means laboured to dissuade him from it; but he is resolute. I'll tell thee, Charles, it is the stubbornest young fellow of France; full of ambition, an envious emulator of every man's good parts, a secret and villainous contriver against me his natural brother; therefore use thy discretion; I had as lief thou didst break his neck as his finger: And thou wert best look to 't; for if thou dost him any slight disgrace, or if he do not mightily grace himself on thee, he will practise against thee by poison, entrap thee by some treacherous device, and never leave thee till he hath ta'en thy life by some indirect means or other: for, I assure thee, and almost with tears I speak it, there is not one so young and so villainous this day living. I speak but brotherly of him; but, should I anatomize him a See' Studies of Shakspere,' pp. 300–1. SCENE II.] 177 AS YOU LIKE IT. to thee as he is, I must blush and weep, and thou must look pale and wonder. CHA. I am heartily glad I came hither to you: If he come to-morrow I 'll give him his payment: If ever he go alone again I'll never wrestle for prize more: And so, God keep your worship! [Exit. OLI. Farewell, good Charles.-Now will I stir this gamestera: I hope I shall see an end of him; for my soul, yet I know not why, hates nothing more than he. Yet he 's gentle; never schooled, and yet learned; full of noble device; of all sorts enchantinglyb beloved²; and, indeed, so much in the heart of the world, and especially of my own people who best know him, that I am altogether misprised: but it shall not be so long; this wrestler shall clear all: nothing remains but that I kindle the boy thither, which now I'll go about. C [Exit. SCENE II.—A Lawn before the Duke's Palace. Enter ROSALIND and CELIA. CEL. I pray thee, Rosalind, sweet my coz, be merry. Ros. Dear Celia, I show more mirth than I am mistress of; and would you yet I were merrierd? Unless you could teach me to forget a banished father, you must not learn me how to remember any extraordinary pleasure. CEL. Herein I see thou lov'st me not with the full weight that I love thee: if my uncle, thy banished father, had banished thy uncle, the duke my father, so thou hadst been still with me I could have taught my love to take thy father for mine; so wouldst thou, if the truth of thy love to me were so righteously tempered as mine is to thee. Ros. Well, I will forget the condition of my estate, to rejoice in yours. CEL. You know my father hath no child but I, nor none is like to have; and, truly, when he dies thou shalt be his heir: for what he hath taken away from thy father, perforce, I will render thee again in affection; by mine honour I will; and when I break that oath let me turn monster: therefore, my sweet Rose, my dear Rose, be merry. Ros. From henceforth I will, coz, and devise sports: let me see;-what think you of falling in love? CEL. Marry, I prithee do, to make sport withal: but love no man in good earnest; nor no further in sport neither, than with safety of a pure blush thou mayst in honour come off again. Ros. What shall be our sport then? a Gamester-adventurer at this game. с ↳ Enchantingly—beloved, of all ranks, to a degree that looks like enchantment. Kindle-instigate. In 'Macbeth' we have, “enkindle you unto the crown." d I were merrier. I, omitted in the original, was added by Pope. 178 [ACT I. AS YOU LIKE IT. ! CEL. Let us sit, and mock the good housewife, Fortune, from her wheel, that her gifts may henceforth be bestowed equally ª. Ros. I would we could do so; for her benefits are mightily misplaced: and the bountiful blind woman doth most mistake in her gifts to women. CEL. 'Tis true: for those that she makes fair she scarce makes honest; and those that she makes honest she makes very ill-favouredly. Ros. Nay, now thou goest from fortune's office to nature's: fortune reigns in gifts of the world, not in the lineaments of nature. Enter TOUCHSTONE. CEL. No? When nature hath made a fair creature, may she not by fortune fall into the fire? Though nature hath given us wit to flout at fortune, hath not fortune sent in this fool to cut off the argument? Ros. Indeed, there is fortune too hard for nature; when fortune makes nature's natural the cutter off of nature's wit. b CEL. Peradventure, this is not fortune's work neither, but nature's ; who perceiving our natural wits too dull to reason of such goddesses, hath sent this natural for our whetstone: for always the dulness of the fool is the whetstone of the wits.- How now, wit? whither wander you? TOUCH. Mistress, you must come away to your father, CEL. Were you made the messenger? TOUCH. No, by mine honour; but I was bid to come for you. Ros. Where learned you that oath, fool? TOUCH. Of a certain knight, that swore by his honour they were good pancakes, and swore by his honour the mustard was naught: now, I'll stand to it, the pancakes were naught, and the mustard was good; and yet was not the knight forsworn d. CEL. How prove you that, in the great heap of your knowledge? Ros. Ay, marry; now unmuzzle your wisdom. TOUCH. Stand you both forth now: stroke your chins, and swear by your beards that I am a knave. CEL. By our beards, if we had them, thou art. TOUCH. Вy my knavery, if I had it, then I were: but if you swear by that that is not, you are not forsworn: no more was this knight, swearing by his honour, for he never had any; or if he had, he had sworn it away before ever he saw those pancakes or that mustard. • Cleopatra, in the presence of the dying Antony, uses the same image:- "Let me rail so high, That the false housewife, Fortune, break her wheel.” Antony and Cleopatra,' Act IV., Scene 13. ↳ Perceiving. This is the reading of the second folio; the first has perceiveth. Malone reads, " and sent.' "" • The wits. So the original copies;-in all the modern editions we have the arbitrary change of his wits. The propriety of the original meaning is obvious—our whetstone, the wits. a When Richard III. (Act IV., Scene 4) swears "by my George, my garter, and my crown," Queen Elizabeth says he swears "by nothing: for this is no oath.” SCENE II.] 179 AS YOU LIKE IT. CEL. Prithee, who is 't that thou mean'st? TOUCH. One that old Frederick, your father, loves. CELª. My father's love is enough to honour him enough: speak no more of him; you'll be whipped for taxation, one of these days. TOUCH. The more pity, that fools may not speak wisely, what wise men do fool- ishly. CEL. By my troth, thou say'st true; for since the little wit that fools have was silenced, the little foolery that wise men have makes a great show. Here comes monsieur le Beau C. Enter LE BEAU. Ros. With his mouth full of news. CEL. Which he will put on us, as pigeons feed their young. Ros. Then shall we be news-crammed. CEL. All the better; we shall be the more marketable. Bon jour, monsieur le Beau: What's the news? LE BEAU. Fair princess, you have lost much good sport. CEL. Sport? Of what colour? LE BEAU. What colour, madam? How shall I answer you? Ros. As wit and fortune will. TOUCH. Or as the destinies decree. CEL. Well said; that was laid on with a trowel d. TOUCH. Nay, if I keep not my rank,- Ros. Thou losest thy old smell. LE BEAU. You amazee me, ladies: I would have told you of good wrestling, which you have lost the sight of. Ros. Yet tell us the manner of the wrestling. LE BEAU. I will tell you the beginning, and, if it please your ladyships, you may see the end; for the best is yet to do; and here, where you are, they are coming to perform it. CEL. Well, the beginning, that is dead and buried. LE BEAU. There comes an old man, and his three sons,- CEL. I could match this beginning with an old tale. LE BEAU. Three proper young men, of excellent growth and presence ;– Ros. With bills on their necks," Be it known unto all men by these pre- sents," f a Celia asks a question, to which the clown replies. The usurping Duke in the last scene is called duke Frederick. In the original this speech is given to Rosalind; but we have to choose between two mistakes-either that Shakspere in the last Act forgot the name of the Duke of the first Act, or that the printer gave a speech of Celia to Rosalind. We prefer to regulate the text upon the minor error. b Taxation-satire. • The original has the instead of le. a Laid on with a trowel-coarsely. A gross flatterer is still said to lay it on with a trowel. • Amaze—confuse. f It has been suggested that "with bills on their necks" should be spoken by Le Beau. The 180 [ACT I. AS YOU LIKE IT. LE BEAU. The eldest of the three wrestled with Charles, the duke's wrestler; which Charles in a moment threw him, and broke three of his ribs, that there is little hope of life in him: so he served the second, and so the third: Yonder they lie; the poor old man, their father, making such pitiful dole over them, that all the beholders take his part with weeping. Ros. Alas! TOUCH. But what is the sport, monsieur, that the ladies have lost? LE BEAU. Why, this that I speak of. TOUCH. Thus men may grow wiser every day! it is the first time that ever I heard breaking of ribs was sport for ladies. CEL. Or I, I promise thee. Ros. But is there any else longs to see this broken music in his sides? is there yet another dotes upon rib-breaking ?-Shall we see this wrestling, cousin? LE BEAU. You must, if you stay here: for here is the place appointed for the wrestling, and they are ready to perform it. CEL. Yonder, sure, they are coming: Let us now stay and see it. Flourish. Enter Duke FREDERICK, Lords, ORLANDO, CHARLES, and Attendants. DUKE F. Come on; since the youth will not be entreated, his own peril on his forwardness. Ros. Is yonder the man? LE BEAU. Even he, madam. CEL. Alas, he is too young: yet he looks successfully. DUKE F. How now, daughter and cousin? are you crept hither to see the wrest- ling? Ros. Ay, my liege; so please you give us leave. DUKE F. You will take little delight in it, I can tell you, there is such odds in the mana. In pity of the challenger's youth I would fain dissuade him, but he will not be entreated: Speak to him, ladies; see if you can move him. CEL. Call him hither, good monsieur le Beau. DUKE F. Do so; I'll not be by. [Duke goes apart. LE BEAU. Monsieur the challenger, the princess b calls for you. ORL. I attend them, with all respect and duty. Ros. Young man, have you challenged Charles the wrestler? ORL. No, fair princess; he is the general challenger: I come but in, as others do, to try with him the strength of my youth. CEL. Young gentleman, your spirits are too bold for your years: You have seen cruel proof of this man's strength: if you saw yourself with your eyes, or "bills" would then be the war-bills or the forest-bills. The double meaning may be as naturally employed by Rosalind, in giving the whole speech to her, as in the original. a Odds in the man. So the folio; in modern editions, men. The meaning would appear to be, the challenger is unequal. The princess, in the folio. The ordinary reading is the princesses. When Orlando answers “I attend them,” he looks towards Celia and Rosalind, but Celia only has called him. SCENE II.] 181 AS YOU LIKE IT. knew yourself with your judgment 2, the fear of your adventure would counsel you to a more equal enterprise. We pray you, for your own sake, to embrace your own safety, and give over this attempt. b Ros. Do, young sir; your reputation shall not therefore be misprised: we will make it our suit to the duke that the wrestling might not go forward. ORL. I beseech you, punish me not with your hard thoughts, wherein I confess me much guilty to deny so fair and excellent ladies anything. But let your fair eyes and gentle wishes go with me to my trial: wherein if I be foiled, there is but one shamed that was never gracious; if killed, but one dead that is willing to be so: I shall do my friends no wrong, for I have none to lament me; the world no injury, for in it I have nothing; only in the world I fill up a place which may be better supplied when I have made it empty. Ros. The little strength that I have, I would it were with you. CEL. And mine, to eke out hers. Ros. Fare you well. Pray heaven, I be deceived in you! CEL. Your heart's desires be with you. CHA. Come, where is this young gallant that is so desirous to lie with his mother earth? ORL. Ready, sir; but his will hath in it a more modest working. DUKE F. You shall try but one fall. CHA. No, I warrant your grace; you shall not entreat him to a second, that have so mightily persuaded him from a first. ORL. You mean to mock me after; you should not have mocked me before: but come your ways. Ros. Now, Hercules be thy speed, young man ! CEL. I would I were invisible, to catch the strong fellow by the leg. Ros. O excellent young man! [CHARLES and ORLANDO wrestle. [CHARLES is thrown. Shout. CEL. If I had a thunderbolt in mine eye, I can tell who should down. DUKE F. No more, no more. ORL. Yes, I beseech your grace; I am not yet well breathed. DUKE F. How dost thou, Charles? LE BEAU. He cannot speak, my lord. DUKE F. Bear him away. What is thy name, young man? [CHARLES is borne out. ORL. Orlando, my liege; the youngest son of sir Rowland de Bois. a Your eyes, &c. It has been proposed to read our eyes and our judgment. But Dr. Johnson interprets the passage according to the original: if you used your own eyes to see, or your own judgment to know yourself, the fear of your adventure would counsel you. ⚫ Some would read herein, some therein. M. Mason says, "The hard thoughts that he com- plains of are the apprehensions expressed by the ladies of his not being able to contend with the wrestler." Hard thoughts! The tender interest which the ladies take in his safety to be called hard thoughts-to be complained of? Surely the meaning is, punish me not with your hard thoughts because I confess me much guilty to deny what you ask. Wherein is decidedly used in the sense of in that. 182 [ACT I. AS YOU LIKE IT. DUKE F. I would thou hadst been son to some man else. The world esteem'd thy father honourable, But I did find him still mine enemy: Thou shouldst have better pleas'd me with this deed Hadst thou descended from another house. But fare thee well; thou art a gallant youth; I would thou hadst told me of another father. [Exeunt Duke FRED., Train, and LE BEAU. CEL. Were I my father, coz, would I do this? ORL. I am more proud to be sir Rowland's son, His youngest son;—and would not change that calling ª, To be adopted heir to Frederick. Ros. My father lov'd sir Rowland as his soul, And all the world was of my father's mind: Had I before known this young man his son, I should have given him tears unto entreaties, Ere he should thus have ventur'd. CEL. Ros. Gentle cousin, Let us go thank him, and encourage him : My father's rough and envious disposition. Sticks me at heart.-Sir, you have well deserv'd; If you do keep your promises in love. But justly as you have exceeded all promise", Your mistress shall be happy. Gentleman, [Giving him a chain from her neck. Wear this for me,-one out of suits with fortune, That could give more but that her hand lacks means. Shall we go, coz? CEL. Ay-Fare you well, fair gentleman. ORL. Can I not say I thank you? My better parts Are all thrown down; and that which here stands up Is but a quintain, a mere lifeless block ³. 3 Ros. He calls us back: My pride fell with my fortunes: I'll ask him what he would:-Did you call, sir?— Sir, you have wrestled well, and overthrown CEL. More than your enemies. Will you go, coz? [Exeunt ROSALIND and CELIA. Ros. Have with you:-Fare you well. ORL. What passion hangs these weights upon my tongue? I cannot speak to her, yet she urg'd conference. a Calling-name. ↳ But justly, &c. In the degree that you have gone beyond all expectation; but as justly. SCENE III.] 183 AS YOU LIKE IT, Re-enter LE BEAU. O poor Orlando! thou art overthrown; Or Charles, or something weaker, masters thee. LE BEAU. Good sir, I do in friendship counsel you To leave this place: Albeit you have deserv'd High commendation, true applause, and love; Yet such is now the duke's conditiona, That he misconstrues all that you have done. The duke is humorous b; what he is, indeed, More suits you to conceive, than I to speak of. ORL. I thank you, sir; and, pray you, tell me this; Which of the two was daughter of the duke That here was at the wrestling? LE BEAU. Neither his daughter, if we judge by manners; d But yet, indeed, the shorter is his daughter: The other is daughter to the banish'd duke, And here detain'd by her usurping uncle, To keep his daughter company; whose loves Are dearer than the natural bond of sisters. But I can tell you, that of late this duke Hath ta'en displeasure 'gainst his gentle niece; Grounded upon no other argument But that the people praise her for her virtues, And pity her for her good father's sake; And, on my life, his malice 'gainst the lady Will suddenly break forth.—Sir, fare you well; Hereafter, in a better world than this, I shall desire more love and knowledge of you. ORL. I rest much bounden to you: fare you well! Thus must I from the smoke into the smother; From tyrant duke unto a tyrant brother:— But heavenly Rosalind! [Exit LE BEAU. [Exit. SCENE III.—A Room in the Palace. Enter CELIA and ROSALIND. CEL. Why, cousin; why, Rosalind ;-Cupid have mercy!—not a word? Ros. Not one to throw at a dog. a Condition-temper. с b Humorous-capricious. I. So the original. In the modern copies it is corrected to me. a The shorter. The original has the taller; but the reading is certainly erroneous, for in the next scene Rosalind describes herself as more than common tall," and in the fourth Act Oliver describes Celia as "low." Malone would read smaller; but we prefer Pope's correction of shorter. Shakspere uses short with reference to a woman-" Leonato's short daughter” ('Much Ado about Nothing'). 184 [ACT I. AS YOU LIKE IT. CEL. No, thy words are too precious to be cast away upon curs; throw some of them at me: come, lame me with reasons. Ros. Then there were two cousins laid up; when the one should be lamed with reasons, and the other mad without any. CEL. But is all this for your father? Ros. No, some of it is for my father's childa: O, how full of briars is this working-day world! CEL. They are but burs, cousin, thrown upon thee in holiday foolery; if we walk not in the trodden paths, our very petticoats will catch them. Ros. I could shake them off my coat; these burs are in my heart. CEL. Hem them away. Ros. I would try; if I could cry hem, and have him. CEL. Come, come, wrestle with thy affections. Ros. O, they take the part of a better wrestler than myself. CEL. O, a good wish upon you! you will try in time, in despite of a fall.-But, turning these jests out of service, let us talk in good earnest: Is it possible, on such a sudden, you should fall into so strong a liking with old sir Row- land's youngest son? Ros. The duke my father loved his father dearly. CEL. Doth it therefore ensue that you should love his son dearly? By this kind of chase, I should hate him, for my father hated his father dearly b; yet I hate not Orlando. Ros. No, 'faith, hate him not, for my sake. CEL. Why should I not? doth he not deserve well¢? Ros. Let me love him for that; and do you love him, because I do:—Look, here comes the duke. CEL. With his eyes full of anger. Enter Duke FREDERICK, with Lords. DUKE F. Mistress, despatch you with your safest haste, And get you from our court. Ros. DUKE F. Me, uncle? You, cousin : Within these ten days if that thou be'st found So near our public court as twenty miles, a My father's child. In the original, my child's father. This is interpreted by Theobald, "for him whom I hope to marry," who will be the father of my children. We have ventured to alter the text as it was altered by Rowe and other of the early editors. Coleridge says, “Who can doubt that it is a mistake for my father's child,' meaning herself?" b Dearly-extremely. • Hate him not, for my sake. CEL. Why should I not? doth he not deserve well? Caldecott's interpretation of this passage is as follows:-"Upon a principle stated by yourself; 'because my father hated his father, does he not well deserve by me to be hated?' while Rosalind, taking the words simply, and without any reference, replies, 'Let me love him for that;' i. e., for that he well deserves.” SCENE III.] 185 AS YOU LIKE IT. Ros. Thou diest for it. I do beseech your grace, Let me the knowledge of my fault bear with me: If with myself I hold intelligence, Or have acquaintance with mine own desires; If that I do not dream, or be not frantic, (As I do trust I am not,) then, dear uncle, Never, so much as in a thought unborn, Did I offend your highness. DUKE F. Thus do all traitors; If their purgation did consist in words, They are as innocent as grace itself: Let it suffice thee, that I trust thee not. Ros. Yet your mistrust cannot make me a traitor : Tell me, whereon the likelihood depends. DUKE F. Thou art thy father's daughter, there 's enough. Ros. So was I when your highness took his dukedom; So was I when your highness banish'd him : Treason is not inherited, my lord; Or, if we did derive it from our friends, What's that to me? my father was no traitor: Then, good my liege, mistake me not so much To think my poverty is treacherous. CEL. Dear sovereign, hear me speak. DUKE F. Ay, Celia; we stay'd her for your sake, Else had she with her father rang'd along. CEL. I did not then entreat to have her stay, It was your pleasure, and your own remorse²; I was too young that time to value her, But now I know her: if she be a traitor, Why so am I; we still have slept together, Rose at an instant, learn'd, play'd, eat together; And wheresoe'er we went, like Juno's swans, Still we went coupled, and inseparable. DUKE F. She is too subtle for thee; and her smoothness, Her very silence, and her patience, Speak to the people, and they pity her. Thou art a fool: she robs thee of thy name; And thou wilt show more bright, and seem more virtuous, When she is gone: then open not thy lips; Firm and irrevocable is my doom Which I have pass'd upon her; she is banish'd. CEL. Pronounce that sentence then on me, my liege; I cannot live out of her company. a Remorse-compassion. COMEDIES.-VOL. II. ہووا 186 [ACT I. AS YOU LIKE IT. DUKE F. You are a fool :-You, niece, provide yourself; If you outstay the time, upon mine honour, And in the greatness of my word, you die. [Exeunt Duke FREDERICK and Lords. CEL. O my poor Rosalind! whither wilt thou go? Wilt thou change fathers? I will give thee mine. I charge thee, be not thou more griev'd than I am. Ros. I have more cause. CEL. Thou hast not, cousin; Prithee, be cheerful; know'st thou not the duke Hath banish'd me, his daughter? Ros. That he hath not. CEL. No? hath not? Rosalind lacks then the love Which teacheth theea that thou and I am one: Shall we be sunder'd? shall we part, sweet girl? No; let my father seek another heir. Therefore devise with me how we may fly, Whither to go, and what to bear with us: b And do not seek to take your change upon you, To bear your griefs yourself, and leave me out; For, by this heaven, now at our sorrows pale, Say what thou canst, I'll go along with thee. Ros. Why, whither shall we go? CEL. To seek my uncle in the forest of Arden. Ros. Alas, what danger will it be to us, Maids as we are, to travel forth so far! Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold. CEL. I'll put myself in poor and mean attire, And with a kind of umber smirch my face, The like do you; so shall we pass along, And never stir assailants. Ros. Were it not better, Because that I am more than common tall, That I did suit me all points like a man? A gallant curtle-axe upon my thigh, a Warburton would read, and we think he has reason, "which teacheth me." Johnson de- fends the original reading of thee. He says, "Where would be the absurdity of saying, You know not the law which teaches you to do right?” b Change-reverse. All the ordinary reprints of the text are here mutilated by one of Steevens's hateful correc- tions. In them we read,—because “we have been already informed by Charles the wrestler that the banished Duke's residence was in the forest of Arden,”- "Ros. Why, whither shall we go? CEL. To seek my uncle." And so the two poor ladies are to go forth to seek the banished Duke through the wide world, and to meet with him at last by chance, because Steevens holds that this indication of their know- ledge of the place of his retreat is "injurious to the measure!" SCENE III.] 187 AS YOU LIKE IT. A boar-spear in my hand; and (in my heart Lie there what hidden woman's fear there will) We'll have a swashing a and a martial outside ; As many other mannish cowards have, That do outface it with their semblances. CEL. What shall I call thee, when thou art a man? Ros. I'll have no worse a name than Jove's own page, And therefore look you call me Ganymede. But what will you be call'd? CEL. Something that hath a reference to my state ; No longer Celia, but Aliena. Ros. But, cousin, what if we essay'd to steal The clownish fool out of your father's court? Would he not be a comfort to our travel? CEL. He'll go along o'er the wide world with me; Leave me alone to woo him: Let's away, And get our jewels and our wealth together; Devise the fittest time, and safest way To hide us from pursuit that will be made After my flight: Now go in we content, To liberty, and not to banishment. [Exeunt. a Swashing. To swash is to make a noise of swords against targets. In 'Romeo and Juliet' we have "the swashing blow." b In we content. This is the reading of the first folio; that of the second, we in content. Ma- lone holds content to be a substantive, in the reading of the second folio. Adopting the original reading, we must receive it as an adjective. 5X4 ["To liberty, and not to banishment."] N2 [“A poor sequester'd stag."] 3 J.JACKSON. ACT II. SCENE I.—The Forest of Arden. Enter DUKE senior, AMIENS, and other Lords, in the dress of Foresters. DUKE S. Now, my co-mates, and brothers in exile, Hath not old custom made this life more sweet Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods More free from peril than the envious court? Here feel we not the penalty of Adam. The seasons' difference,-as, the icy fang, And churlish chiding of the winter's wind, Which when it bites and blows upon my body, Even till I shrink with cold, I smile, and say This is no flattery,—these are counsellors SCENE I.] 189 AS YOU LIKE IT. That feelingly persuade me what I amª. Sweet are the uses of adversity; Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head5; And this our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks", Sermons in stones, and good in everything. AMI. I would not change it: Happy is your grace, That can translate the stubbornness of fortune Into so quiet and so sweet a style. DUKE S. Come, shall we go and kill us venison? And yet it irks mee the poor dappled fools,- Being native burghers of this desert city,- Should, in their own confines, with forked heads d Have their round haunches gor'd. 1 LORD. Indeed, my lord, The melancholy Jaques grieves at that; And, in that kind, swears you do more usurp Than doth your brother that hath banish'd you. To-day, my lord of Amiens and myself Did steal behind him, as he lay along Under an oak, whose antique root peeps out Upon the brook that brawls along this wood: To the which place a poor sequester'd stag, That from the hunters' aim had ta'en a hurt, Did come to languish; and, indeed, my lord, The wretched animal heav'd forth such groans, That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat Almost to bursting; and the big round tears Cours'd one another down his innocent nose In piteous chase: and thus the hairy fool, Much marked of the melancholy Jaques, Stood on the extremest verge of the swift brook, Augmenting it with tears. DUKE S. But what said Jaques? Did he not moralise this spectacle? a In this celebrated passage we have restored the old reading- "Here feel we not the penalty of Adam." "Here feel we but the penalty of Adam." In every modern edition, except that of Mr. Caldecott, the reading is— (See Illustration 4.) b This is an amplification of a thought in Sydney's 'Arcadia:' "Thus both trees and each thing else be the books to a fancy." c Irks me. This active use of the verb irk has become obsolete, although it is used by as re- cent an author as Hoole. The meaning is obvious from the adjective, which we still retain, irksome. a Forked heads-the heads of barbed arrows. 190 [ACT II. AS YOU LIKE IT. 1 LORD. O yes, into a thousand similes. First, for his weeping into the needless a stream; "Poor deer," quoth he, "thou mak'st a testament As worldlings do, giving thy sum of more To that which had too much." Then being there alone ©, Left and abandon'd of his velvet friendª; ""T is right," quoth he; "thus misery doth part The flux of company:" Anon, a careless herd, Full of the pasture, jumps along by him, And never stays to greet him; "Ay," quoth Jaques, Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens; 'T is just the fashion: Wherefore do you look Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there?” Thus most invectively he pierceth through The body of the country, city, court, Yea, and of this our life: swearing, that we Are mere usurpers, tyrants, and what's worse, To fright the animals, and to kill them upe, In their assign'd and native dwelling-place. DUKE S. And did you leave him in this contemplation? 2 LORD. We did, my lord, weeping and commenting Upon the sobbing deer. DUKE S. Show me the place; I love to cope f him in these sullen fits, For then he's full of matter. 2 LORD. I'll bring you to him straight. SCENE II.—A Room in the Palace. Enter Duke FREDERICK, Lords, and Attendants. DUKE F. Can it be possible that no man saw them? It cannot be some villains of my court a Needless-needing not. So, in 'The Lover's Complaint,' "In a river- Upon whose weeping margin she was set, Like usury, applying wet to wet." [Exeunt. • Then being there alone. So the folio of 1623. The second folio reads, "Then being alone," which of course becomes the received reading. It is wonderful how soon after Shakspere's death his verse offered an opportunity for the tampering of those who did not understand it. The twelve-syllable verse, sparingly introduced, imparts a singularly dramatic freedom to the poetry, and makes the regular metre more beautiful from the variety. d Friend. The ordinary reading is friends. Whiter here observes, "The singular is often used for the plural with a sense more abstracted, and therefore in many instances more poetical."- 'Specimen of a Commentary,' 8vo, 1794, p. 15. f Kill them up. In the same way Shakspere has "flatter up,"—" stifle up,"-" poisons up.” Cope-encounter. SCENE III.] -191 AS YOU LIKE IT. Are of consent and sufferance in this. 1 LORD. I cannot hear of any that did see her. The ladies, her attendants of her chamber, Saw her a-bed; and, in the morning early, They found the bed untreasur'd of their mistress. 2 LORD. My lord, the roynisha clown, at whom so oft Your grace was wont to laugh, is also missing. Hesperia, the princess' gentlewoman, Confesses, that she secretly o'erheard Your daughter and her cousin much commend The parts and graces of the wrestler That did but lately foil the sinewy Charles; And she believes, wherever they are gone, That youth is surely in their company. DUKE F. Send to his brother; fetch that gallant hither; If he be absent, bring his brother to me, I'll make him find him: do this suddenly; And let not search and inquisition quail b To bring again these foolish runaways. ORL. Who's there? SCENE III.-Before Oliver's House. Enter ORLANDO and ADAM, meeting. ADAM. What! my young master!-O, my gentle master, O, my sweet master, O you memory Of old sir Rowland! why, what make you here? Why are you virtuous? Why do people love you? And wherefore are you gentle, strong, and valiant? Why would you be so fond to overcome The bony priser of the humorous duke? Your praise is come too swiftly home before you. Know you not, master, to some kind of men Their graces serve them but as enemies? No more do yours; your virtues, gentle master, Are sanctified and holy traitors to you. O, what a world is this, when what is comely Envenoms him that bears it! [Exeunt. a Roynish-literally, mangy-the French rogneux. In the same manner we still say, a scurvy fellow. C Quail-slacken. Bony priser. In the original, bonnie priser. We are willing to receive the correction of War- burton, bony; which is supported by the epithet "big-boned traitor" in 'Henry VI.' 192 [ACT II. AS YOU LIKE IT. ORL. Why, what's the matter? ADAM. O unhappy youth, Come not within these doors; within this roof The enemy of all your graces lives: Your brother-(no, no brother; yet the son- Yet not the son; I will not call him son- Of him I was about to call his father)- Hath heard your praises; and this night he means To burn the lodging where you use to lie, And you within it: if he fail of that, He will have other means to cut you off: I overheard him and his practices. This is no place, this house is but a butchery; Abhor it, fear it, do not enter it. ORL. Why, whither, Adam, wouldst thou have me go? ADAM. No matter whither, so you come not here. ORL. What, wouldst thou have me go and beg my food? Or, with a base and boisterous sword, enforce A thievish living on the common road? This I must do, or know not what to do: Yet this I will not do, do how I can; I rather will subject me to the malice Of a diverted blood", and bloody brother. ADAM. But do not so: I have five hundred crowns, The thrifty hire I sav'd under your father, Which I did store, to be my foster-nurse, When service should in my old limbs lie lame, And unregarded age in corners thrown; Take that and He that doth the ravens feed, Yea, providently caters for the sparrow, Be comfort to my age! Here is the gold; All this I give you: Let me be your servant; Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty : For in my youth I never did apply Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood: Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo The means of weakness and debility ; Therefore my age is as a lusty winter, Frosty, but kindly: let me go with you; I'll do the service of a younger man a Place. M. Mason interprets this, no place for you. Steevens's explanation is a seat, a man- sion. But there could be no sense in saying, this is no house-place-mansion; this house is but a butchery. It is clearly-this is no abiding-place. b A diverted blood. Caldecott explains this as, "affections alienated and turned out of their natural course; as a stream of water is said to be diverted.” SCENE IV.] 193 AS YOU LIKE IT. In all your business and necessities. ORL. O good old man; how well in thee appears The constant service of the antique world, When service sweat for duty, not for meed! Thou art not for the fashion of these times, Where none will sweat, but for promotion; And having that, do choke their service up Even with the having: it is not so with thee. But, poor old man, thou prun'st a rotten tree, That cannot so much as a blossom yield, In lieu of all thy pains and husbandry: But come thy ways, we 'll go along together: And ere we have thy youthful wages spent, We'll light upon some settled low content. ADAM. Master, go on; and I will follow thee, To the last gasp, with truth and loyalty.— From seventeen years a till now almost fourscore Here lived I, but now live here no more. At seventeen years many their fortunes seek; But at fourscore, it is too late a weekb: Yet fortune cannot recompense me better, Than to die well, and not my master's debtor. [Exeunt. SCENE IV.—The Forest of Arden. Enter ROSALIND in boy's clothes, CELIA dressed like a Shepherdess, and TOUCHSTONE. Ros. O Jupiter! how merry are my spirits! Touch. I care not for my spirits, if my legs were not weary. Ros. I could find in my heart to disgrace my man's apparel, and to cry like a woman: but I must comfort the weaker vessel, as doublet and hose ought to show itself courageous to petticoat: therefore, courage, good Aliena. CEL. I pray you, bear with me; I cannot go no furtherª. TOUCH. For my part, I had rather bear with you, than bear you: yet I should a The original folios read seventy. That it must have been a misprint is evident from the next line but one. C Too late a week—an indefinite period, but still a short period-somewhat too late. Merry. All the modern editions read weary. Whiter, with great good sense, suggests that Rosalind's merriment was assumed as well as her dress. Malone's explanation supports Whiter's remark: "She invokes Jupiter, because he was supposed to be always in good spirits. A jovial man was a common phrase in our author's time." d The double negative was not considered a violation of grammar in Shakspere's time. We mention this, because a correspondent points this passage out as an inaccuracy which we have overlooked. We follow the idiom of the original, although in the second folio we read, "I can go no further." އ 1 194 AS YOU LIKE IT. [ACT II. bear no crossa, if I did bear you; for, I think, you have no money in your purse. Ros. Well, this is the forest of Arden. Toucн. Ay, now am I in Arden: the more fool I; when I was at home, I was in a better place; but travellers must be content. Ros. Ay, be so, good Touchstone:-Look you, who comes here; a young man, and an old, in solemn talk. Enter CORIN and SILVIUS. COR. That is the way to make her scorn you still. SIL. O Corin, that thou knew'st how I do love her! COR. I partly guess; for I have lov'd ere now. SIL. No, Corin, being old, thou canst not guess; Though in thy youth thou wast as true a lover As ever sigh'd upon a midnight pillow: But if thy love were ever like to mine, (As sure I think did never man love so,) How many actions most ridiculous Hast thou been drawn to by thy fantasy? COR. Into a thousand that I have forgotten. SIL. O, thou didst then never love so heartily: If thou remember'st not the slightest folly That ever love did make thee run into, Thou hast not lov'd: Or if thou hast not sat as I do now, b Wearing thy hearer in thy mistress' praise, Thou hast not lov'd: Or if thou hast not broke from company Abruptly, as my passion now makes me, Thou hast not lov'd: O Phebe, Phebe, Phebe! Ros. Alas, poor shepherd! searching of thy wound, [Exit SILVIUS. I have by hard adventure found mine own. TOUCH. And I mine: I remember, when I was in love, I broke my sword upon a stone, and bid him take that for coming anight to Jane Smile: and I remember the kissing of her batler, and the cow's dugs that her pretty chopped hands had milked and I remember the wooing of a peascod instead of her; from whom I took two cods, and, giving her them again, said, with weeping tears, Wear these for my sake." We, that are true a Cross-a piece of money stamped with a cross, as most of our coins were. b Wearing. This is the original word, and is unnecessarily altered to wearying. To weary and to wear are the same, in the sense of the text. C • Batler-the bat used in washing linen in a stream. d From whom-from his mistress. He took from her two peascods-that is, two pods. We find the pod or cod of the pea used as an ornament in the robe of Richard II., in his monument in Westminster Abbey. SCENE IV.] 195 AS YOU LIKE IT. lovers, run into strange capers; but as all is mortal in nature, so is all nature in love mortal in folly a. Ros. Thou speak'st wiser than thou art 'ware of, TOUCH. Nay, I shall ne'er be 'ware of mine own wit, till I break my shins against it. Ros. Jove! Jove! this shepherd's passion Is much upon my fashion. TOUCH. And mine; but it grows something stale with me. CEL. I pray you, one of you question yond man, If he for gold will give us any food; I faint almost to death. TOUCH. Holla; you clown! Ros. COR. Who calls? TOUCH. Your betters, sir. Peace, fool; he 's not thy kinsman. COR. Else are they very wretched. Ros. Peace, I say:-Good even to you, friend. COR. And to you, gentle sir, and to you all. Ros. I prithee, shepherd, if that love, or gold, COR. Can in this desert place buy entertainment, Bring us where we may rest ourselves, and feed: Here's a young maid with travel much oppress'd, And faints for succour. Fair sir, I pity her, And wish for her sake, more than for mine own, My fortunes were more able to relieve her: But I am shepherd to another man, And do not shear the fleeces that I grazė; My master is of churlish disposition, And little recks to find the way to heaven By doing deeds of hospitality: Besides, his cote, his flocks, and bounds of feed, Are now on sale, and at our sheepcote now, By reason of his absence, there is nothing That you will feed on; but what is, come see, And in my voice most welcome shall you be. Ros. What is he that shall buy his flock and pasture? COR. That young swain that you saw here but erewhile, That little cares for buying anything. Ros. I pray thee, if it stand with honesty, Buy thou the cottage, pasture, and the flock, And thou shalt have to pay for it of us. CEL. And we will mend thy wages: I like this place, And willingly could waste my time in it. a Mortal in folly-extremely foolish,—from mort, a great quantity. 196 [ACT 11. AS YOU LIKE IT. COR. Assuredly, the thing is to be sold: Go with me; if you like upon report, The soil, the profit, and this kind of life, I will your very faithful feeder be, And buy it with your gold right suddenly [Exeunt. AMI. SCENE V.-The same. Enter AMIENS, Jaques, and others. SONG. Under the greenwood tree, Who loves to lie with me, And turnª his merry note Unto the sweet bird's throat, Come hither, come hither, come hither; Here shall he see No enemy, · But winter and rough weather. JAQ. More, more, I prithee, more. AMI. It will make you melancholy, monsieur Jaques. JAQ. I thank it. More, I prithee, more. I can suck melancholy out of a song, as a weazel sucks eggs: More, I prithee, more. AMI. My voice is ragged; I know I cannot please you. Jaq. I do not desire you to please me, I do desire you to sing: Come, more; another stanza; Call you 'em stanzas? AMI. What you will, monsieur Jaques. JAQ. Nay, I care not for their names; they owe me nothing: Will you sing? AMI. More at your request than to please myself. JAQ. Well then, if ever I thank any man I'll thank you: but that they call compliment is like the encounter of two dog-apes; and when a man thanks me heartily, methinks I have given him a penny, and he renders me the beggarly thanks. Come, sing; and you that will not, hold your tongues. AMI. Well, I'll end the song.—Sirs, cover the while; the duke will drink under this tree-he hath been all this day to look you. C JAQ. And I have been all this day to avoid him. He is too disputable for my company: I think of as many matters as he; but I give heaven thanks, and make no boast of them. Come, warble, come. a Turn-modulate. The modern reading is tune. b Ragged-broken, discordant. The term was used for anything wanting in propriety. In Shakspere's Lucrece' we have- "Thy smoothing titles to a ragged name.” Ragged verses were inharmonious verses. C Disputable-disputatious. SCENE VI.] 197 AS YOU LIKE IT. SONG. Who doth ambition shun, And loves to live i' the sun, Seeking the food he eats, And pleas'd with what he gets, Come hither, come hither, come hither Here shall he see No enemy, But winter and rough weather. [All together here. JAQ. I'll give you a verse to this note, that I made yesterday in despite of my invention. AMI. And I'll sing it. JAQ. Thus it goes: If it do come to pass, That any man turn ass, Leaving his wealth and ease, A stubborn will to please, Ducdàme, ducdàme, ducdàme; Here shall he see Gross fools as he, An if he will come to me. AMI. What 's that ducdame? JAQ. 'Tis a Greek invocation, to call fools into a circle. I'll go sleep if I can; if I cannot, I'll rail against all the first-born of Egypta. AMI. And I'll go seek the duke; his banquet is prepared. [Exeunt severally. SCENE VI.—The same. Enter ORLANDO and ADAM. ADAM. Dear master, I can go no further: O, I die for food! Here lie I down, and measure out my grave. Farewell, kind master. ORL. Why, how now, Adam! no greater heart in thee? Live a little; comfort a little; cheer thyself a little: If this uncouth forest yield anything savage, I will either be food for it, or bring it for food to thee. Thy conceit is nearer death than thy powers. For my sake, be comfortable, hold death awhile at the arm's end: I will here be with thee presently; and if I bring thee not something to eat I will give thee leave to die: but if thou diest before I come thou art a mocker of my labour. Well said! thou look'st cheerly and I'll be with thee quickly.-Yet thou liest in the bleak air: Come, I will bear thee to some shelter; and thou shalt not die for lack of a dinner, if there live anything in this desert. Cheerly, good Adam! : [Exeunt. ² The first-born of Egypt. Johnson explains this as a proverbial expression for high-born persons. Be comfortable—become susceptible of comfort. 198 [ACT II. AS YOU LIKE IT. A table set out. SCENE VII.—The same. Enter DUKE senior, AMIENS, Lords, and others. DUKE S. I think he be transform'd into a beast; For I can nowhere find him like a man. 1 LORD. My lord, he is but even now gone hence ; Here was he merry, hearing of a song. DUKE S. If he, compactª of jars, grow musical, We shall have shortly discord in the spheres:--- Go, seek him; tell him I would speak with him. Enter JAQUES. 1 LORD. He saves my labour by his own approach. DUKE S. Why, how now, monsieur! what a life is this, That your poor friends must woo your company? What! you look merrily. JAQ. A fool, a fool! I met a fool i' the forest, A motley fool; a miserable world: As I do live by food, I met a fool; Who laid him down and bask'd him in the sun, And rail'd on lady Fortune in good terms, In good set terms, and yet a motley fool. “Good morrow, fool," quoth I: "No, sir," quoth he, "Call me not fool, till heaven hath sent me fortune :" And then he drew a dial from his poke⁹; And looking on it with lack-lustre eye, Says, very wisely, “It is ten o'clock: Thus we may see," quoth he, "how the world wags 'Tis but an hour ago, since it was nine; And after one hour more, 't will be eleven ; And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe, And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot, And thereby hangs a tale." When I did hear The motley fool thus moral-on the time, My lungs began to crow like chanticleer, That fools should be so deep-contemplative; And I did laugh, sans intermission, An hour by his dial.—O noble fool! A worthy fool! Motley's the only wear. DUKE S. What fool is this? JAQ. O worthy fool!-One that hath been a courtier; And says, if ladies be but young, and fair, They have the gift to know it: and in his brain,— a Compact-compounded, made up of. SCENE VII.] 199 AS YOU LIKE IT. Which is as dry as the remainder bisenit After a voyage,-he hath strange places cramm'd With observation, the which he vents In mangled forms:-O, that I were a fool! I am ambitious for a motley coat. DUKE S. Thou shalt have one. JAQ. It is my only suitª: Provided, that you weed your better judgments Of all opinion that grows rank in them, That I am wise. I must have liberty Withal, as large a charter as the wind, To blow on whom I please; for so fools have: And they that are most galled with my folly, They most must laugh: And why, sir, must they so? The why is plain as way to parish church: He that a fool doth very wisely hit Doth very foolishly, although he smart, [Not to b] seem senseless of the bob: if not, The wise man's folly is anatomis'd Even by the squand'ring glances of the fool. Invest me in my motley; give me leave To speak my mind, and I will through and through Cleanse the foul body of the infected world, If they will patiently receive my medicine. DUKE S. Fie on thee! I can tell what thou wouldst do. JAQ. What, for a counter, would I do but good ¹º? DUKE S. Most mischievous foul sin, in chiding sin : For thou thyself hast been a libertine, As sensual as the brutish sting itself; And all the embossed sores, and headed evils, That thou with licence of free foot hast caught, Wouldst thou disgorge into the general world. JAQ. Why, who cries out on pride, That can therein tax any private party? Doth it not flow as hugely as the sea, Till that the weary d very means do ebb? a Suit-request. Rosalind plays in the same way upon the word: "Not out of your apparel, but out of your suit." Not to. These words are not in the original, but were added by Theobald. We cannot dis- pense with them, unless we adopt Whiter's ingenious but somewhat forced punctuation :— С Bob-rap. "He that a fool doth very wisely hit Doth, very foolishly although he smart, Seem senseless of the bob." a Weary—exhausted. Whiter interprets it, "till that the very means, being weary, do ebb.” The usual bald reading is, very, very. 200 [ACT II. AS YOU LIKE IT. What woman in the city do I name When that I say, The city-woman bears The cost of princes on unworthy shoulders? Who can come in, and say that I mean her, When such a one as she, such is her neighbour? Or what is he of basest function, That says, his bravery a is not on my cost, (Thinking that I mean him,) but therein suits His folly to the mettle of my speech? There then; How then? what then? Let me see wherein My tongue hath wrong'd him": if it do him right, Then he hath wrong'd himself; if he be free, b Why then, my taxing like a wild goose flies, Unclaim'd of any man.-But who comes here? с Enter ORLANDO, with his sword drawn. ORL. Forbear, and eat no more. JAQ. Why, I have eat none yet. ORL. Nor shalt not, till necessity be serv'd. JAQ. Of what kind should this cock come of? DUKE S. Art thou thus bolden'd, man, by thy distress; Or else a rude despiser of good manners, That in civility thou seem'st so empty? ORL. You touch'd my vein at first; the thorny point Of bare distress hath ta'en from me the show Of smooth civility: yet am I inland bred, And know some nurtured. But, forbear, I say; He dies that touches any of this fruit Till I and my affairs are answered. JAQ. An you will not be answered with reason, I must die. DUKE S. What would you have? Your gentleness shall force, More than your force move us to gentleness. ORL. I almost die for food, and let me have it. DUKE S. Sit down and feed, and welcome to our table. ORL. Speak you so gently? Pardon me, I pray you : I thought that all things had been savage here ; And therefore put I on the countenance Of stern commandment: But whate'er you are, That in this desert inaccessible, Under the shade of melancholy boughs, Lose and neglect the creeping hours of time; If ever you have look'd on better days; If ever been where bells have knoll'd to church; a Bravery-finery. C Comes. The original has come. b Taxing-censure, reproach. d Nurture-education. SCENE VII.] 201 AS YOU LIKE IT. If ever sat at any good man's feast; If ever from your eyelids wip'd a tear, And know what 't is to pity and be pitied; Let gentleness my strong enforcement be: In the which hope, I blush, and hide my sword. DUKE S. True is it that we have seen better days; And have with holy bell been knoll'd to church; And sat at good men's feasts; and wip'd our eyes Of drops that sacred pity hath engender'd: And therefore sit you down in gentleness, And take upon command what help we have, That to your wanting may be minister'd. ORL. Then, but forbear your food a little while, Whiles, like a doe, I go to find my fawn, And give it food. There is an old poor man, Who after me hath many a weary step Limp'd in pure love; till he be first suffic'd, Oppress'd with two weak evils", age and hunger, I will not touch a bit. DUKE S. Go find him out, And we will nothing waste till you return. ORL. I thank ye: and be bless'd for your good comfort! DUKE S. Thou seest, we are not all alone unhappy: JAQ. This wide and universal theatre Presents more woeful pageants than the scene Wherein we play in c. 12 All the world's a stage ¹², And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits, and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms: Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel, And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school: and then, the lover, Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad Made to his mistress' eyebrow: Then, a soldier; Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard, Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon's mouth: and then, the justice; Upon command-at your pleasure. b Weak evils-causes of weakness. [Exit. • This construction, as we have often shown, is common to Shakspere and the writers of his age. COMEDIES.-VOL. 11. 0 202 [ACT II. AS YOU LIKE IT. In fair round belly, with good capon lin'd, With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut, Full of wise saws and modern instances, And so he plays his part: The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon; With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side; His youthful hose well sav'd, a world too wide For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, Turning again toward childish treble, pipes And whistles in his sound: Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness, and mere oblivion ; Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. Re-enter ORLANDO, with ADAM. DUKE S. Welcome: Set down your venerable burthen, ORL. And let him feed. I thank you most for him. ADAM. So had you need you I scarce can speak to thank you for myself. DUKE S. Welcome, fall to: I will not trouble As yet, to question you about your fortunes :- Give us some music; and, good cousin, sing. AMIENS sings. SONG. I. Blow, blow, thou winter wind, Thou art not so unkind a As man's ingratitude; Thy tooth is not so keen, Because thou art not seen, Although thy breath be rude. Heigh ho! sing, heigh ho! unto the green holly: Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly: Then, heigh ho! the holly! This life is most jolly. II. Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, That dost not bite so nigh As benefits forgot: Though thou the waters warp, Thy sting is not so sharp As friend remember'd not. Heigh ho! sing, heigh ho! &c. a Unkind—unnatural. Warp. There was an old Saxon proverb, Winter shall warp water. SCENE VII.] 203 AS YOU LIKE IT. DUKE S. If that you were the good sir Rowland's son, As you have whisper'd faithfully you were; And as mine eye doth his effigies witness Most truly limn'd, and living in your face, Be truly welcome hither: I am the duke That lov'd your father: The residue of your fortune, Go to my cave and tell me.—Good old man, Thou art right welcome as thy master is; Support him by the arm.-Give me your hand, And let me all your fortunes understand. [Exeunt. VLJACKSON. ["Dear master, I can go no further."] ག 0 2 T.WILLIAMS: Waniell ない ​["Tongues I'll hang on every tree."] ACT III. SCENE I.—A Room in the Palace. Enter Duke FREDERICK, OLIVER, Lords, and Attendants. DUKE F. Not see him since? Sir, sir, that cannot be : But were I not the better part made mercy, I should not seek an absent argumenta Of my revenge, thou present: But look to it; Find out thy brother, wheresoe'er he is; Seek him with candle; bring him dead or living Within this twelvemonth, or turn thou no more To seek a living in our territory. Thy lands, and all things that thou dost call thine, a Argument-subject-matter. It is supposed that this is an allusion to the passage in Saint Luke, c. xv.: “If she lose one piece, doth she not light a candle?" If so, it is, metaphorically, seek him in every corner with the greatest diligence. SCENE II.] 205 AS YOU LIKE IT. Worth seizure, do we seize into our hands; Till thou canst quit thee by thy brother's mouth, Of what we think against thee. OLI. O, that your highness knew my heart in this! I never lov'd my brother in my life. DUKE F. More villain thou.-Well, push him out of doors; And let my officers of such a nature Make an extent upon his house and lands ª: Do this expediently, and turn him going. [Exeunt. SCENE II.-The Forest. Enter ORLANDO, with a paper. ORL. Hang there, my verse, in witness of my love: And, thou, thrice-crowned queen of night, survey With thy chaste eye from thy pale sphere above, Thy huntress' name, that my full life doth sway. O Rosalind! these trees shall be my books, And in their barks my thoughts I'll character ; That every eye, which in this forest looks, Shall see thy virtue witness'd everywhere. Run, run, Orlando; carve on every tree The fair, the chaste, and unexpressive a she. d Enter CORIN and TOUCHSTONE. [Exit. COR. And how like you this shepherd's life, master Touchstone? TOUCH. Truly, shepherd, in respect of itself it is a good life; but in respect that it is a shepherd's life it is naught. In respect that it is solitary I like it very well; but in respect that it is private it is a very vile life. Now, in respect it is in the fields it pleaseth me well; but in respect it is not in the court it is tedious. As it is a spare life, look As it is a spare life, look you, it fits my humour well; but as there is no more plenty in it, it goes much against my stomach. Hast any philosophy in thee, shepherd? COR. No more, but that I know, the more one sickens the worse at ease he is; a The law phrase is here used literally. ↳ Expediently—promptly. · Johnson says, “alluding to the triple character of Proserpine, Cynthia, and Diana, given by some mythologists to the same goddess." d Unexpressive—inexpressible. Warton (in a note upon the following passage in Milton's Hymn on the Nativity') supposes that Shakspere coined the word:- "The helmed Cherubim, And sworded Seraphim, Are seen in glittering ranks with wings display'd, Harping in loud and solemn quire, With unexpressive notes to Heaven's new-born Heir." 206 [ACT III. AS YOU LIKE IT. and that he that wants money, means, and content, is without three good friends: That the property of rain is to wet, and fire to burn: That good pasture makes fat sheep; and that a great cause of the night is lack of the sun: That he that hath learned no wit by nature nor art may complain of good breedinga, or comes of a very dull kindred. TOUCH. Such a one is a natural philosopher. Wast ever in court, shepherd? COR. No, truly. TOUCH. Then thou art damned. COR. Nay, I hope, TOUCH. Truly, thou art damned; like an ill-roasted egg, all on one side. COR. For not being at court? Your reason. if TOUCH. Why, if thou never wast at court thou never saw'st good mannersb; thou never saw'st good manners then thy manners must be wicked; and wickedness is sin, and sin is damnation: Thou art in a parlous state, shepherd. COR. Not a whit, Touchstone: those that are good manners at the court are as ridiculous in the country, as the behaviour of the country is most mockable at the court. You told me, you salute not at the court, but you kiss your hands; that courtesy would be uncleanly, if courtiers were shepherds. TOUCH. Instance, briefly; come, instance. COR. Why, we are still handling our ewes; and their fells, you know, are greasy. TOUCH. Why, do not your courtier's hands sweat? and is not the grease of a mutton as wholesome as the sweat of a man? Shallow, shallow: A better instance, I say; come. COR. Besides, our hands are hard. TOUCH. Your lips will feel them the sooner. Shallow, again: A more sounder instance, come. COR. And they are often tarred over with the surgery of our sheep; And would you have us kiss tar? The courtier's hands are perfumed with civet. TOUCH. Most shallow man! Thou worms'-meat, in respect of a good piece of flesh: Indeed! Learn of the wise, and perpend: Civet is of a baser birth than tar; the very uncleanly flux of a cat. Mend the instance, shepherd. COR. You have too courtly a wit for me; I'll rest. TOUCH. Wilt thou rest damned? God help thee, shallow man! incision in thee! thou art rawd. God make COR. Sir, I am a true labourer; I earn that I eat, get that I wear; owe no man hate, envy no man's happiness; glad of other men's good, content with my harme: and the greatest of my pride is, to see my ewes graze and my lambs suck. a May complain of the want of good breeding. Whiter says, "This is a mode of speech com- mon, I believe, to all languages.” ↳ Manners is here used in the sense of morals. Morals was not used by the old writers. Parlous-perilous. e a Steevens thinks this has reference to the proverbial phrase of "cutting for the simples." • Resigned to any evil. SCENE II.] 207 AS YOU LIKE IT. TOUCH. That is another simple sin in you; to bring the ewes and the rams together, and to offer to get your living by the copulation of cattle: to be bawd to a bell-wether; and to betray a she-lamb of a twelvemonth, to a crooked-pated, old, cuckoldly ram, out of all reasonable match. If thou be'st not damned for this, the devil himself will have no shepherds; I cannot see else how thou shouldst 'scape. COR. Here comes young master Ganymede, my new mistress' brother. Ros. Enter ROSALIND, reading a paper. "From the east to western Ind, No jewel is like Rosalind. Her worth, being mounted on the wind, Through all the world bears Rosalind. All the pictures, fairest lin’d ª, Are but black to Rosalind. Let no face be kept in mind, b But the fair of Rosalind." TOUCH. I'll rhyme you so, eight years together; dinners, and suppers, and sleeping hours excepted: it is the right butter-woman's rank to market©. Ros. Out, fool! TOUCH. For a taste: If a hart do lack a hind,. Let him seek out Rosalind. If the cat will after kind, So, be sure, will Rosalind. Wintred-garments must be lin’d, So must slender Rosalind. They that reap must sheaf and bind ;; Then to cart with Rosalind. Sweetest nut hath sourest rind, Such a nut is Rosalind. He that sweetest rose will find, Must find love's prick and Rosalind.. This is the very false gallop of verses: Why do you infect yourself with them? Ros. Peace, you dull fool; I found them on a tree. TOUCH. Truly, the tree yields bad fruit. Ros. I'll graff it with you, and then I shall graff it with a medlar: then it will be the earliest fruit in the country: for you'll be rotten ere you be half ripeª, and that's the right virtue of the medlar. a Lin'd-delineated. b Fair-beauty. • Whiter says, defending the old reading of rank, that the expression means the jog-trot rate with which butter-women travel to market, one after another. In its application to Orlando's poetry it means a set or string of verses, in the same course, cadence, and uniformity of rhythm. We think that Whiter's explanation is right; and that Shakspere, moreover, had in mind the pack-horse roads, where one traveller must follow another in single rank. a Does this require a note? With regard to its premature decay is not the medlar the earliest fruit? Yet Steevens says, "Shakspeare seems to have had little knowledge in gardening. The medlar is one of the latest fruits, being uneatable till the end of November."!!! 208 [ACT III. AS YOU LIKE IT. TOUCH. You have said; but whether wisely or no, let the forest judge. Enter CELIA, reading a paper. Ros. Peace! Here comes my sister, reading; stand aside. CEL. t Why should this desert be a ? For it is unpeopled? No; Tongues I'll hang on every tree, That shall civil sayings show. Some, how brief the life of man Runs his erring ↳ pilgrimage ; That the stretching of a span Buckles in his sum of age. Some, of violated vows "Twixt the souls of friend and friend: But upon the fairest boughs, Or at every sentence' end, Will I Rosalinda write; C Teaching all that read, to know The quintessence of every sprite Heaven would in little show. Therefore heaven nature charg'd That one body should be fill'd With all graces wide enlarg'd: Nature presently distill'd Helen's cheek, but not her heart; Cleopatra's majesty ; Atalanta's better part; Sad Lucretia's modesty 13. Thus Rosalind of many parts By heavenly synod was devis'd; Of many faces, eyes, and hearts, To have the touches & dearest priz'd. Heaven would that she these gifts should have, And I to live and die her slave." Ros. O most gentle Jupiter! what tedious homily of love have you wearied your parishioners withal, and never cried, "Have patience, good people!" • This is the text of the old copies. The ordinary reading is- (C 'Why should this desert silent be?" This was Tyrwhitt's emendation; but the adjective is certainly unnecessary. The absence of people, says the sonnetteer, does not make this place desert, for I will hang tongues on every tree, that will speak the language of civil life. Desert is here an adjective opposed to civil. Pope, to reform the metre, reads― "C Why should this a desert be." But, upon the principle that a line must be sometimes read with retardation, the article is not necessary, and its introduction weakens the sense. b Erring-wandering. • In little-in miniature. d Touches-traits. SCENE II.] 209 AS YOU LIKE IT. CEL. How now! back, friends;-Shepherd, go off a little go with him, sirrah. TOUCH. Come, shepherd, let us make an honourable retreat; though not with bag and baggage, yet with scrip and scrippage. CEL. Didst thou hear these verses? [Exeunt CORIN and TOUCHSTONE. Ros. O, yes, I heard them all, and more too; for some of them had in them more feet than the verses would bear. CEL. That's no matter; the feet might bear the verses. Ros. Ay, but the feet were lame, and could not bear themselves without the verse, and therefore stood lamely in the verse. CEL. But didst thou hear, without wondering, how thy name should be hanged and carved upon these trees? Ros. I was seven of the nine days out of the wonder before you came; for look here what I found on a palm-tree: I was never so be-rhymed since Py- thagoras' time, that I was an Irish rat¹¹, which I can hardly remember. CEL. Trow you who hath done this? Ros. Is it a man? CEL. And a chain, that you once wore, about his neck: Change you colour? Ros. I prithee, who? CEL. O lord, lord! it is a hard matter for friends to meet; but mountains may be removed with earthquakes, and so encounter. Ros. Nay, but who is it? CEL. Is it possible? Ros. Nay, I pray thee now, with most petitionary vehemence, tell me who it is. CEL. O wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful wonderful, and yet again wonderful, and after that out of all whooping a. Ros. Good my complexion! dost thou think, though I am caparisoned like a man, I have a doublet and hose in my disposition? One inch of delay more is a South-sea of discovery. I prithee, tell me, who is it? quickly, and speak apace: I would thou couldst stammer, that thou mightst pour this concealed man out of thy mouth, as wine comes out of a narrow-mouthed bottle; either too much at once, or none at all. I prithee take the cork out of thy mouth, that I may drink thy tidings. CEL. So you may put a man in your belly. Ros. Is he of God's making? What manner of man? Is his head worth a hat, or his chin worth a beard? CEL. Nay, he hath but a little beard. Ros. Why, God will send more, if the man will be thankful: let me stay the growth of his beard, if thou delay me not the knowledge of his chin. a There is an old proverbial phrase, out of cry, meaning, beyond all measure. b Ritson explains this as a little unmeaning exclamatory address to her beauty, in the nature of a small oath. • My curiosity can endure no longer. If you perplex me any further I have a space for con- jecture as wide as the South-sea. Of is the original reading; the modern change is a South-sea off discovery." 210 [ACT III. AS YOU LIKE IT. CEL. It is young Orlando; that tripped up the wrestler's heels, and your heart, both in an instant. Ros. Nay, but the devil take mocking; speak sad brow, and true maidª. CEL. I' faith, coz, 't is he. Ros. Orlando ? CEL. Orlando. Ros. Alas the day! what shall I do with my doublet and hose?—What did he when thou saw'st him? What said he? How looked he? Wherein went heb? What makes he here? Did he ask for me? Where remains he? How parted he with thee? and when shalt thou see him again? Answer me in one word. CEL. You must borrow me Gargantua's mouth first: 't is a word too great for any mouth of this age's size: To say ay, and no, to these particulars, is more than to answer in a catechism. Ros. But doth he know that I am in this forest and in man's apparel? Looks he as freshly as he did the day he wrestled? CEL. It is as easy to count atomies, as to resolve the propositions of a lover: but take a taste of my finding him, and relish it with a good observance. I found him under a tree, like a dropped acorn. d Ros. It may well be called Jove's tree, when it drops forth such a fruit. CEL. Give me audience, good madam. Ros. Proceed. CEL. There lay he, stretched along, like a wounded knight. Ros. Though it be pity to see such a sight, it well becomes the ground. CEL. Cry, holla! to the tongue, I prithee; it curvets unseasonably e. He was furnished like a hunter. Ros. O ominous! he comes to kill my hart f! CEL. I would sing my song without a burthen: thou bring'st me out of tune. Ros. Do you not know I am a woman? when I think I must speak. Sweet, say on. Enter ORLANDO and JAQUES. CEL. You bring me out 8:-Soft! comes he not here? Ros. "T is he; slink by, and note him. [CELIA and ROSALIND retire. JaQ. I thank you for your company; but, good faith, I had as lief have been myself alone. Speak with a serious countenance, and as a true maid. So Henry V. says, "I speak to thee plain soldier." ↳ Wherein went he?-in what dress did he go? с Gargantua's mouth-the mouth of the giant of Rabelais, who swallowed five pilgrims in a salad. • Such is not in the folio of 1623; it is inserted in the second folio. • The ordinary reading, contrary to the original, is very unseasonably. The original has also the tongue-personifying tongue-as we say, "the government of the tongue.” f Hart. So the original. There is a play upon the words hart and heart; but it is unnecessary to print heart, to make the quibble intelligible. g You bring me out-put me out. SCENE II.] 211 AS YOU LIKE IT. ORL. And so had I; but yet, for fashion sake, I thank you too for your society. JAQ. God be with you; let's meet as little as we can. ORL. I do desire we may be better strangers. JAQ. I pray you, mar no more trees with writing love-songs in their barks. ORL. I pray you, mar no more of my verses with reading them ill-favouredly. JAQ. Rosalind is your love's name? ORL. Yes, just. JAQ. I do not like her name. ORL. There was no thought of pleasing you when she was christened. JAQ. What stature is she of? ORL. Just as high as my heart. Jaq. You are full of pretty answers: Have you not been acquainted with gold- smiths' wives, and conned them out of rings? ORL. Not so; but I answer you right painted cloth, from whence you have studied your questions 15. JAQ. You have a nimble wit; I think it was made of Atalanta's heels. Will you sit down with me? and we two will rail against our mistress the world, and all our misery. ORL. I will chide no breather in the world but myself; against whom I know most faults. JAQ. The worst fault you have, is to be in love. ORL. 'T is a fault I will not change for your best virtue. I am weary of you. JAQ. By my troth, I was seeking for a fool when I found you. ORL. He is drowned in the brook; look but in, and you shall see him. JAQ. There shall I see mine own figure. ORL. Which I take to be either a fool, or a cipher. JAQ. I'll tarry no longer with you: farewell, good signior Love. ORL. I am glad of your departure; adieu, good monsieur Melancholy. [Exit JAQUES-CELIA and Ros. come forward. Ros. I will speak to him like a saucy lacquey, and under that habit play the knave with him.-Do you hear, forester? ORL. Very well; What would you? Ros. I pray you, what is 't a clock? ORL. You should ask me what time o' day; there's no clock in the forest. Ros. Then there is no true lover in the forest; else sighing every minute, and groaning every hour, would detect the lazy foot of time as well as a clock. ORL. And why not the swift foot of time? had not that been as proper? Ros. By no means, sir: Time travels in divers paces with divers persons: I'll tell you who Time ambles withal, who Time trots withal, who Time gallops withal, and who he stands still withal. ORL. I prithee, who doth he trot withal? Ros. Marry, he trots hard with a young maid, between the contract of her mar- riage and the day it is solemnised: if the interim be but a se'nnight, Time's pace is so hard that it seems the length of seven year. ORL. Who ambles Time withal? 212 [ACT III. AS YOU LIKE IT. Ros. With a priest that lacks Latin, and a rich man that hath not the gout: for the one sleeps easily, because he cannot study; and the other lives merrily, because he feels no pain: the one lacking the burthen of lean and wasteful learning; the other knowing no burthen of heavy tedious penury: These Time ambles withal. ORL. Who doth he gallop withal ? Ros. With a thief to the gallows for though he go as softly as foot can fall, he thinks himself too soon there. ORL. Who stays it still withal ? Ros. With lawyers in the vacation: for they sleep between term and term, and then they perceive not how time moves. ORL. Where dwell you, pretty youth? Ros. With this shepherdess, my sister; here, in the skirts of the forest, like fringe upon a petticoat. ORL. Are you native of this place? Ros. As the coney, that you see dwell where she is kindled. ORL. Your accent is something finer than you could purchase in so removed ª a dwelling. Ros. I have been told so of many: but, indeed, an old religious uncle of mine taught me to speak, who was in his youth an inland man; one that knew courtship too well, for there he fell in love. I have heard him read many lectures against it; and I thank God I am not a woman, to be touched with so many giddy offences as he hath generally taxed their whole sex withal. ORL. Can you remember any of the principal evils that he laid to the charge of women? Ros. There were none principal; they were all like one another, as half- pence are every one fault seeming monstrous, till his fellow fault came to match it. ORL. I prithee recount some of them. Ros. No; I will not cast away my physic but on those that are sick. There is a man haunts the forest that abuses our young plants with carving Rosalind on their barks; hangs odes upon hawthorns, and elegies on brambles; all, forsooth, deifying the name of Rosalind: if I could meet that fancy-monger I would give him some good counsel, for he seems to have the quotidian of love upon him. b ORL. I am he that is so love-shaked; I pray you, tell me your remedy. Ros. There is none of my uncle's marks upon you: he taught me how to know a man in love; in which cage of rushes, I am sure, you are not prisoner. ORL. What were his marks ? C Ros. A lean cheek; which you have not: a blue eye, and sunken; which you have not: an unquestionable spirit; which you have not: a beard neg- lected; which you have not: (but I pardon you for that; for, simply, your & Removed-remote. b Deifying. So the folio of 1632. In the first folio, defying. C Unquestionable—not to be questioned, not to be conversed with. SCENE II.] 213 AS YOU LIKE IT. having in beard a is a younger brother's revenue :) Then your hose should be ungartered, your bonnet unbanded, your sleeve unbuttoned, your shoe. untied, and everything about you demonstrating a careless desolation. But you are no such man; you are rather point-device in your accoutrements as loving yourself, than seeming the lover of any other. ORL. Fair youth, I would I could make thee believe I love. Ros. Me believe it? you may as soon make her that you love believe it; which, I warrant, she is apter to do than to confess she does: that is one of the points in the which women still give the lie to their consciences. But, in good sooth, are you he that hangs the verses on the trees, wherein Rosalind is so admired? ORL. I swear to thee, youth, by the white hand of Rosalind, I am that he, that unfortunate he. Ros. But are you so much in love as your rhymes speak? ORL. Neither rhyme nor reason can express how much. Ros. Love is merely a madness; and, I tell you, deserves as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do: and the reason why they are not so punished and cured is, that the lunacy is so ordinary that the whippers are in love too: Yet I profess curing it by counsel. ORL. Did you ever cure any so? Ros. Yes, one; and in this manner. He was to imagine me his love, his mis- tress; and I set him every day to woo me: At which time would I, being but a moonish youth, grieve, be effeminate, changeable, longing, and liking; proud, fantastical, apish, shallow, inconstant, full of tears, full of smiles; for every passion something, and for no passion truly anything, as boys and women are for the most part cattle of this colour: would now like him, now loathe him; then entertain him, then forswear him; now weep for him, then spit at him; that I drave my suitor from his mad humour of love, to a living humour of madness; which was, to forswear the full stream of the world, and to live in a nook merely monastic: And thus I cured him; and this way will I take upon me to wash your liver as clean as a sound sheep's heart, that there shall not be one spot of love in 't. ORL. I would not be cured, youth. Ros. I would cure you, if you would but call me Rosalind, and come every day to my cote, and woo me. ORL. Now, by the faith of my love, I will: tell me where it is. Ros. Go with me to it, and I'll show it you: and, by the way, you shall tell me where in the forest you live: Will you go? ORL. With all my heart, good youth. Ros. Nay, you must call me Rosalind :-Come, sister, will you go? [Exeunt. a Having in beard. So the original. The second edition reads, "having no beard." The mean- ing is, your possession in beard; having is a substantive. C b Point-device-minutely exact. See Twelfth Night,' Act II., Scene 5. C Living-actual, positive. 214 [ACT III. AS YOU LIKE IT. - SCENE III. Enter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY; JAQUES at a distance, observing them. TOUCH. Come apace, good Audrey; I will fetch up your goats, Audrey: And how, Audrey? am I the man yet? Doth my simple feature content you? AUD. Your features! Lord warrant us! what features? TOUCH. I am here with thee and thy goats, as the most capricious poet, honest Ovid, was among the Goths a • JAQ. O knowledge ill-inhabited ! worse than Jove in a thatched house © ! [Aside. TOUCH. When a man's verses cannot be understood, nor a man's good wit se- conded with the forward child, understanding, it strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room: Truly, I would the gods had made thee poetical. AUD. I do not know what poetical is: Is it honest in deed, and word? Is it a true thing? TOUCH. No, truly; for the truest poetry is the most feigning; and lovers are given to poetry; and what they swear in poetry, may be said, as lovers, they do feign. AUD. Do you wish, then, that the gods had made me poetical? TOUCH. I do, truly for thou swear'st to me thou art honest; now, if thou wert a poet I might have some hope thou didst feign. AUD. Would you not have me honest? TOUCH. No, truly, unless thou wert hard-favoured: for honesty coupled to beauty, is to have honey a sauce to sugar. JAQ. A material fool d! [Aside. AUD. Well, I am not fair; and therefore I pray the gods make me honest! Touch. Truly, and to cast away honesty upon a foul slut, were to put good meat into an unclean dish. AUD. I am not a slut, though I thank the gods I am foulº. TOUCH. Well, praised be the gods for thy foulness! sluttishness may come here- after. But be it as it may be, I will marry thee: and to that end, I have been with sir Oliver Mar-text, the vicar of the next village; who hath pro- mised to meet me in this place of the forest, and to couple us. JAQ. I would fain see this meeting. [Aside. a Caldecott says, "Caper, capri, caperitious, capricious, fantastical, capering, goatish: and by a similar sort of process we are to smooth Goths into goats." b Ill-inhabited-ill-lodged. • The same allusion is in 'Much Ado about Nothing,' Act II., Scene 1:— (C My visor is Philemon's roof; within the house is Jove." ◄ A fool, says Johnson, with matter in him. • Foul is here used in the sense of homely-opposed to fair. It retained this sense as late as Pope; and the meaning in the time of Shakspere may be seen in the following extract from Thomas's' History of Italy:'-" If the maiden be fair she is soon had, and little money given with her; if she be foul they avaunce her with a better portion." SCENE III.] 215 AS YOU LIKE IT. AUD. Well, the gods give us joy! TOUCH. Amen. A man may, if he were of a fearful heart, stagger in this at- tempt; for here we have no temple but the wood, no assembly but horn- beasts. But what though? Courage! As horns are odious, they are neces- sary. It is said, Many a man knows no end of his goods: right; many a man has good horns, and knows no end of them. Well, that is the dowry of his wife; 't is none of his own getting. Horns? Even so: Poor men alone? No, no; the noblest deer hath them as huge as the rascala. Is the single man therefore blessed? No; as a walled town is more worthier than a village, so is the forehead of a married man more honourable than the bare brow of a bachelor: and by how much defence b is better than no skill, by so much is a horn more precious than to want. Enter Sir OLIVER MAR-TEXT. C Here comes sir Oliver :-Sir Oliver Mar-text, you are well met: Will you despatch us here under this tree, or shall we go with you to your chapel? SIR OLI. Is there none here to give the woman? TOUCH. I will not take her on gift of any man. SIR OLI. Truly, she must be given, or the marriage is not lawful. JAQ. [discovering himself.] Proceed, proceed; I'll give her. TOUCH. Good even, good master "What ye call 't:" How do you, sir? You are very well met: God 'ild youd for your last company: I am very glad to see you:-Even a toy in hand here, sir:-Nay; pray be covered. JAQ. Will you be married, motley? TOUCH. As the ox hath his bow 16, sir, the horse his curb, and the falcon her bells 17 so man hath his desires; and as pigeons bill, so wedlock would be nibbling. JAQ. And will you, being a man of your breeding, be married under a bush, like a beggar? Get you to church, and have a good priest that can tell you what marriage is: this fellow will but join you together as they join wainscot; then one of you will prove a shrunk panel, and, like green timber, warp, warp. TOUCH. I am not in the mind but I were better to be married of him than of another: for he is not like to marry me well; and not being well married, it will be a good excuse for me hereafter to leave my wife. JAQ. Go thou with me, and let me counsel thee. TOUCH. Come, sweet Audrey: We must be married, or we must live in bawdry. Farewell, good master Oliver! [Aside. a Puttenham, in his 'Art of Poesie,' 1589, tells us—Rascal knave is "a figure of abuse; where rascal is properly the hunter's term given to young deer, lean and out of season, and not to people." b And by how much defence is better, &c. Any means of defence is better than the lack of science; in proportion as something is to nothing. • Sir Oliver. See the opening of ' Merry Wives of Windsor,' Sir Hugh. d God yield you-give you recompense. 216 [ACT III. AS YOU LIKE IT. Not O sweet Oliver, O brave Oliver, Leave me not behind thee: But wind away, Begone I say, I will not to wedding with thee. [Exeunt JAQUES, TOUCHSTONE, and AUDREY. SIR OLI. T is no matter; ne'er a fantastical knave of them all shall flout me out of my calling. [Exit. SCENE IV.-The same. Before a Cottage. Enter ROSALIND and CELIA. Ros. Never talk to me, I will weep. CEL. Do, I prithee; but yet have the grace to consider that tears do not become a man. Ros. But have I not cause to weep ? CEL. As good cause as one would desire; therefore weep. Ros. His very hair is of the dissembling colour. CEL. Something browner than Judas's: marry, his kisses are Judas's own children. Ros. I' faith, his hair is of a good colour. CEL. An excellent colour: your chestnut was ever the only colour. Ros. And his kissing is as full of sanctity as the touch of holy bread. CEL. He hath bought a pair of cast lips of Diana: a nun of winter's sister- hood kisses not more religiously; the very ice of chastity is in them. Ros. But why did he swear he would come this morning, and comes not? CEL. Nay, certainly, there is no truth in him. Ros. Do you think so? CEL. Yes; I think he is not a pick-purse, nor a horse-stealer; but for his verity a in love, I do think him as concave as a covered-goblet ª, or a worm-eaten nut. Ros. Not true in love? CEL. Yes, when he is in; but, I think he is not in. Ros. You have heard him swear downright he was. CEL. Was is not is: besides, the oath of a lover is no stronger than the word of a tapster; they are both the confirmer of false reckonings: He attends here in the forest on the duke your father: Ros. I met the duke yesterday, and had much question with him: He asked me, of what parentage I was; I told him, of as good as he; so he laughed, and let me go. But what talk we of fathers, when there's such a man as Orlando ? b a The goblet is covered when it is empty; when full, to be drunk out of, the cover is removed. Question-discourse. SCENE V.] 217 AS YOU LIKE IT. CEL. O, that's a brave man! he writes brave verses, speaks brave words, swears brave oaths, and breaks them bravely, quite traverse, athwart the heart of his lover; as a puny tilter, that spurs his horse but on one side, breaks his staff like a noble goose: but all 's brave that youth mounts, and folly guides -Who comes here? Enter CORIN. COR. Mistress, and master, you have oft inquir'd After the shepherd that complain'd of love; Who you saw sitting by me on the turf, Praising the proud disdainful shepherdess That was his mistress. Well, and what of him? CEL. COR. If you will see a pageant truly play'd, Between the pale complexion of true love And the red glow of scorn and proud disdain, Go hence a little, and I shall conduct you, If you will mark it. Ros. O, come, let us remove; The sight of lovers feedeth those in love: Bring us to this sight, and you shall say I'll prove a busy actor in their play. [Exeunt. SCENE V.-Another part of the Forest. Enter SILVIUS and PHERE. SIL. Sweet Phebe, do not scorn me; do not, Phebe : Say, that you love me not; but say not so In bitterness: The common executioner, Whose heart the accustom'd sight of death makes hard, Falls not the axe upon the humbled neck, But first begs pardon; Will you sterner be Than he that dies and lives by bloody drops? Enter ROSALIND, CELIA, and CORIN, at a distance. PHE. I would not be thy executioner; I fly thee, for I would not injure thee. Thou tell'st me, there is murther in mine eye; 'Tis pretty, sure, and very probable, That eyes, that are the frail'st and softest things, Who shut their coward gates on atomies, COMEDIES.-VOL. II. P 218 [ACT III. AS YOU LIKE IT. SIL. Should be call'd tyrants, butchers, murtherers! Now I do frown on thee with all my heart; And, if mine eyes can wound, now let them kill thee; Now counterfeit to swoon; why now fall down; Or, if thou canst not, O, for shame, for shame, Lie not, to say mine eyes are murtherers. Now show the wound mine eye hath made in thee: Scratch thee but with a pin, and there remains Some scar of it; lean upon a rush, The cicatrice and capable a impressure, Thy palm some moment keeps: but now mine eyes, Which I have darted at thee, hurt thee not; Nor, I am sure, there is no force in eyes That can do hurt. O dear Phebe, If ever (as that ever may be near) You meet in some fresh cheek the power of fancy, Then shall you know the wounds invisible That love's keen arrows make. PHE. But, till that time, Come not thou near me: and, when that time comes, Afflict me with thy mocks, pity me not; As, till that time, I shall not pity thee. Ros. And why, I pray you? [Advancing.] Who might be your mother? That you insult, exult, and all at once, Over the wretched? What though you have no beauty b, (As, by my faith, I see no more in you Than without candle may go dark to bed,) Must you be therefore proud and pitiless? Why, what means this? Why do you look on me? I see no more in you than in the ordinary Of nature's sale-work:-Od's my little life! I think, she means to tangle my eyes too :— No, 'faith, proud mistress, hope not after it ; "T is not your inky brows, your black silk hair, Your bugle eyeballs, nor your cheek of cream, That can entame my spirits to your worship. You foolish shepherd, wherefore do you follow her, Like foggy south, puffing with wind and rain ? You are a thousand times a properer man, Than she a woman: "T is such fools as you a Capable-able to receive. No beauty. The tenor of Rosalind's speech is to make Phebe think humbly of herself; and yet in all the modern editions no is turned into more, it being maintained that the original word was mo, misprinted no. SCENE V.] 219 AS YOU LIKE IT. That make the world full of ill-favour'd children: "T is not her glass, but you, that flatters her; And out of you she sees herself more proper Than any of her lineaments can show her. But, mistress, know yourself; down on your knees, And thank heaven, fasting, for a good man's love: For I must tell you friendly in your ear, Sell when you can; you are not for all markets: Cry the man mercy; love him; take his offer; Foul is most foul, being foul to be a scoffer. So, take her to thee, shepherd; fare you well. PHE. Sweet youth, I pray you chide a year together; I had rather hear you chide than this man woo. Ros. He's fallen in love with your a foulness, and she 'll fall in love with my anger: If it be so, as fast as she answers thee with frowning looks, I 'll sauce her with bitter words.-Why look you so upon me? PHE. For no ill will I bear you. Ros. I pray you, do not fall in love with me, For I am falser than vows made in wine: Besides, I like you not: If you will know my house, "T is at the tuft of olives, here hard by :- Will you go, sister? Shepherd, ply her hard; Come, sister Shepherdess, look on him better, And be not proud: though all the world could see, None could be so abus'd in sight as he. Come, to our flock. [Exeunt ROSAL., CELIA, and CORIN. PHE. Dead Shepherd! now I find thy saw of might; “Who ever lov'd, that lov'd not at first sight?" 18 SIL. Sweet Phebe,— PHE. Ha! what say'st thou, Silvius ? SIL. Sweet Phebe, pity me. PHE. Why, I am sorry for thee, gentle Silvius. SIL. Wherever sorrow is, relief would be; If you do sorrow at my grief in love, By giving love, your sorrow and my grief Were both extermin'd. PHE. Thou hast my love; Is not that neighbourly? SIL. I would have you. РНЕ. Why, that were covetousness. Silvius, the time was that I hated thee; And yet it is not that I bear thee love : But since that thou canst talk of love so well, a Your. The modern reading is her. We suppose Rosalind here turns to the parties before her, and addresses each. P 2 220 [ACT III. AS YOU LIKE IT. Thy company, which erst was irksome to me, I will endure; and I'll employ thee too : But do not look for further recompense Than thine own gladness that thou art employ'd. SIL. So holy and so perfect is my love, And I in such a poverty of grace, That I shall think it a most plenteous crop To glean the broken ears after the man That the main harvest reaps: loose now and then A scatter'd smile, and that I'll live upon. PHE. Know'st thou the youth that spoke to me erewhile? SIL. Not very well, but I have met him oft; And he hath bought the cottage, and the bounds, That the old carlota once was master of. PHE. Think not I love him, though I ask for him; "T is but a peevish boy :-yet he talks well;— But what care I for words? yet words do well, When he that speaks them pleases those that hear. It is a pretty youth:—not very pretty :— But, sure, he 's proud; and yet his pride becomes him: He 'll make a proper man: The best thing in him Is his complexion; and faster than his tongue Did make offence, his eye did heal it up. He is not very tall; yet for his years he 's tall: His leg is but so so; and yet 't is well: There was a pretty redness in his lip; A little riper and more lusty red Than that mix'd in his cheek; 't was just the difference Betwixt the constant red, and mingled damask". There be some women, Silvius, had they mark'd him In parcels as I did, would have gone near To fall in love with him: but, for my part, I love him not, nor hate him not; and yet Have more cause to hate him than to love him : For what had he to do to chide at me? He said, mine eyes were black, and my hair black; And now I am remember'd, scorn'd at me : I marvel why I answer'd not again : But that's all one: omittance is no quittance. I'll write to him a very taunting letter, And thou shalt bear it; Wilt thou, Silvius? a Carlot-churl or peasant. This is explained as referring to the silk called damask. We doubt this. The damask rose was of a more varied hue than the constant red of other species of rose. SCENE V.] 221 AS YOU LIKE IT. www SIL. Phebe, with all my heart. РНЕ. I'll write it straight: The matter 's in my head, and in my heart: I will be bitter with him, and passing short: Go with me, Silvius. ク ​LANDELLS [SCENE V. "Sweet Phebe, do not scorn me." | [Exeunt. [SCENE III. "Lay sleeping on his back."] E ACT IV. SCENE 1.-The same. Enter ROSALIND, CELIA, and JAQUES. Jaq. I prithee, pretty youth, let me be better acquainted with thee. Ros. They say you are a melancholy fellow. JAQ. I am so I do love it better than laughing. Ros. Those that are in extremity of either are abominable fellows; and betray themselves to every modern censure, worse than drunkards. JAQ. Why, 't is good to be sad and say nothing. Ros. Why then, 't is good to be a post. JAQ. I have neither the scholar's melancholy, which is emulation; nor the musician's, which is fantastical; nor the courtier's, which is proud; nor the SCENE I.] 223 AS YOU LIKE IT. soldier's, which is ambitious; nor the lawyer's, which is politic; nor the lady's, which is niceª; nor the lover's, which is all these: but it is a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, extracted from many objects, and, indeed, the sundry contemplation of my travels, in which my often rumination wraps me in a most humorous sadness. Ros. A traveller! By my faith, you have great reason to be sad: I fear, you have sold your own lands, to see other men's; then, to have seen much, and to have nothing, is to have rich eyes and poor hands. JAQ. Yes, I have gained my experience. Enter ORLANDO. Ros. And your experience makes you sad: I had rather have a fool to make me merry, than experience to make me sad; and to travel for it too. ORL. Good day, and happiness, dear Rosalind! JAQ. Nay then, God be wi' you, an you talk in blank verse. Ros. Farewell, monsieur traveller: Look you lisp and wear strange suits ; disable all the benefits of your own country; be out of love with your nativity, and almost chide God for making you that countenance you are; or I will scarce think you have swam in a gondola. [Exit JAQUES."]-Why, how now, Orlando! where have you been all this while? You a lover?- An you serve me such another trick, never come in my sight more. ORL. My fair Rosalind, I come within an hour of my promise. Ros. Break an hour's promise in love? He that will divide a minute into a thousand parts, and break but a part of the thousandth part of a minute in the affairs of love, it may be said of him that Cupid hath clapped him o' the shoulder, but I'll warrant him heart-whole. ORL. Pardon me, dear Rosalind. Ros. Nay, an you be so tardy, come no more in my sight; I had as lief be wooed of a snail. ORL. Of a snail ? Ros. Ay, of a snail; for though he comes slowly, he carries his house on his head; a better jointure, I think, than you make a woman: Besides, he brings his destiny with him. ORL. What's that? Ros. Why, horns; which such as you are fain to be beholden to your wives for : but he comes armed in his fortune, and prevents the slander of his wife. ORL. Virtue is no horn-maker; and my Rosalind is virtuous. a Nice-affected. b The original reads "by often rumination." We give the reading of the second folio. His melancholy is the contemplation of his travels, the rumination upon which wraps him in a most humorous sadness. Malone makes up a reading different from both editions, and so does Steevens also in another way. • Disable-detract from. a The first folio does not mark the exit of Jaques. It is usually placed at the end of his speech. But Mr. Dyce asks, “Does Rosalind say all this to Jaques after he has left the stage?" 224 [ACT IV. AS YOU LIKE IT. Ros. And I am your Rosalind. CEL. It pleases him to call you so; but he hath a Rosalind of a better leera than you. Ros. Come, woo me, woo me; for now I am in a holiday humour, and like enough to consent:-What would you say to me now, an I were your very very Rosalind ? ORL. I would kiss before I spoke. Ros. Nay, you were better speak first; and when you were gravelled for lack of matter, you might take occasion to kiss. Very good orators, when they are out, they will spit; and for lovers, lacking (God warn us!) matter, the clean- liest shift is to kiss. ORL. How if the kiss be denied? Ros. Then she puts you to entreaty, and there begins new matter. ORL. Who could be out, being before his beloved mistress? Ros. Marry, that should you, if I were your mistress; or I should think my honesty ranker than my wit. ORL. What, of my suit? Ros. Not out of your apparel, and yet out of your suit. Am not I your Rosalind? ORL. I take some joy to say you are, because I would be talking of her. Ros. Well, in her person, I say-I will not have you. ORL. Then, in mine own person, I die. Ros. No, faith, die by attorney. The poor world is almost six thousand years old, and in all this time there was not any man died in his own person, videlicet, in a love-cause. Troilus had his brains dashed out with a Grecian club: yet he did what he could to die before; and he is one of the patterns of love. Leander, he would have lived many a fair year, though Hero had turned nun, if it had not been for a hot midsummer night: for, good youth, he went but forth to wash him in the Hellespont, and, being taken with the cramp, was drowned 19; and the foolish chroniclers of that age found it was -Hero of Sestos. But these are all lies; men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love. ORL. I would not have my right Rosalind of this mind; for, I protest, her frown might kill me. Ros. By this hand, it will not kill a fly: But come, now I will be your Rosalind in a more coming-on disposition; and ask me what you will, I will grant it. ORL. Then love me, Rosalind. Ros. Yes, faith will I, Fridays, and Saturdays, and all. ORL. And wilt thou have me? Ros. Ay, and twenty such. ORL. What say'st thou? a Leer—feature. ↳ Chroniclers. We are unwilling to alter the text, but there can be little doubt that the change which has been adopted by Hanmer, of coroners, perhaps crowners-gives the true word. The technical use of found decides this. We must accept chroniclers in the sense of coroners. SCENE I.] 225 AS YOU LIKE IT. Ros. Are you not good? ORL. I hope so. Ros. Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing?-Come, sister, you shall be the priest, and marry us.-Give me your hand, Orlando :- What do you say, sister? ORL. Pray thee, marry us. CEL. I cannot say the words. Ros. You must begin, “Will you, Orlando, CEL. Go to :- -Will you, Orlando, have to wife this Rosalind ? ORL. I will. Ros. Ay, but when? ORL. Why now; as fast as she can marry us. Ros. Then you must say,—“I take thee, Rosalind, for wife. ORL. I take thee, Rosalind, for wife. Ros. I might ask you for your commission; but,—I do take thee, Orlando, for my husband: There's a girl goes before the priest and, certainly, a woman's thought runs before her actions. ORL. So do all thoughts; they are winged. Ros. Now tell me, how long you would have her, after you have possessed her. ORL. For ever, and a day. Ros. Say a day, without the ever: No, no, Orlando; men are April when they woo, December when they wed: maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives. I will be more jealous of thee than a Barbary cock-pigeon over his hen; more clamorous than a parrot against rain; more new-fangled than an ape; more giddy in my desires than a mon- key: I will weep for nothing, like Diana in the fountain, and I will do that when you are disposed to be merry; I will laugh like a hyen, and that when thou art inclined to sleep. ORL. But will my Rosalind do so? Ros. By my life, she will do as I do. ORL. O, but she is wise. a Ros. Or else she could not have the wit to do this: the wiser, the waywarder: Make the doors ª upon a woman's wit, and it will out at the casement; shut that, and 't will out at the key-hole; stop that, 't will fly with the smoke out at the chimney. ORL. A man that had a wife with such a wit, he might say," Wit, whither wilt?"b Ros. Nay, you might keep that check for it, till you met your wife's wit going to your neighbour's bed. ORL. And what wit could wit have to excuse that? Ros. Marry, to say-she came to seek you there. You shall never take her without her answer, unless you take her without her tongue. O, that woman a Make the doors—the language of the midland counties for making fast the doors. Malone thinks these are the first words of a madrigal. 226 [АСТ IV. AS YOU LIKE IT. that cannot make her fault her husband's occasion, let her never nurse her child herself, for she will breed it like a fool. ORL. For these two hours, Rosalind, I will leave thee. Ros. Alas, dear love, I cannot lack thee two hours. ORL. I must attend the duke at dinner; by two o'clock I will be with thee again. Ros. Ay, go your ways, go your ways;-I knew what you would prove; my friends told me as much, and I thought no less:—that flattering tongue of yours won me :-'t is but one cast away, and so,—come, death.-Two o'clock is your hour? ORL. Ay, sweet Rosalind. Ros. By my troth, and in good earnest, and so God mend me, and by all pretty oaths that are not dangerous, if you break one jot of your promise, or come one minute behind your hour, I will think you the most pathetical a break- promise, and the most hollow lover, and the most unworthy of her you call Rosalind, that may be chosen out of the gross band of the unfaithful: there- fore beware my censure, and keep your promise. ORL. With no less religion than if thou wert indeed my Rosalind: So, adieu. Ros. Well, Time is the old justice that examines all such offenders, and let Time try: Adieu! [Exit ORLANDO. CEL. You have simply misused our sex in your love prate: we must have your doublet and hose plucked over your head, and show the world what the bird hath done to her own nest. Ros. O coz, coz, coz, my pretty little coz, that thou didst know how many fathom deep I am in love! But it cannot be sounded; my affection hath an unknown bottom, like the bay of Portugal. CEL. Or rather, bottomless; that as fast as you pour affection in, it runs out. Ros. No, that same wicked bastard of Venus, that was begot of thought, con- ceived of spleen, and born of madness; that blind rascally boy, that abuses every one's eyes, because his own are out, let him be judge how deep I am in love:—I'll tell thee, Aliena, I cannot be out of the sight of Orlando: I'll go find a shadow, and sigh till he come. CEL. And I'll sleep. [Exeunt. SCENE II.—Another part of the Forest. Enter JAQUES and Lords, in the habit of Foresters. JAQ. Which is he that killed the deer? 1 LORD. Sir, it was I. a We have "most pathetical wit" in 'Love's Labour 's Lost.' SCENE III.] 227 AS YOU LIKE IT. JAQ. Let's present him to the duke, like a Roman conqueror; and it would do well to set the deer's horns upon his head, for a branch of victory:- :-Have you no song, forester, for this purpose? 2 LORD. Yes, sir. JAQ. Sing it; 't is no matter how it be in tune, so it make noise enough. SONG. 1. What shall he have that kill'd the deer 20? 2. His leather skin, and horns to wear ª. Take thou no scorn, to wear the horn ; It was a crest ere thou wast born. 1. Thy father's father wore it : 2. And thy father bore it; The horn, the horn, the lusty horn, Is not a thing to laugh to scorn. [Exeunt. SCENE III.-The Forest. Enter ROSALIND and CELIA. Ros. How say you now? Is it not past two o'clock? and here much Orlando b ! CEL. I warrant you, with pure love, and troubled brain, he hath ta'en his bow and arrows, and is gone forth-to sleep: Look, who comes here. Enter SILVIUS. SIL. My errand is to you, fair youth ;- My gentle Phebe did bid me give you this: I know not the contents; but, as I guess, By the stern brow, and waspish action Which she did use as she was writing of it, It bears an angry tenor: pardon me, I am but as a guiltless messenger. Ros. Patience herself would startle at this letter, And play the swaggerer; bear this, bear all : She says, I am not fair; that I lack manners; She calls me proud; and, that she could not love me Were man as rare as phoenix; Od's my will! a In the modern editions we have a line after this,― [Giving a letter. "Then sing him home." For the reason of the omission see Illustration 20. › Much Orlando-ironically, a great deal of Orlando. 228 [ACT IV. AS YOU LIKE IT. Her love is not the hare that I do hunt. Why writes she so to me?-Well, shepherd, well, This is a letter of your own device. SIL. No, I protest, I know not the contents; Ros. Phebe did write it. Come, come, you are a fool, And turn'd into the extremity of love. I saw her hand: she has a leathern hand, A freestone-colour'd hand; I verily did think That her old gloves were on, but 't was her hands; She has a huswife's hand; but that 's no matter : I say, she never did invent this letter; This is a man's invention, and his hand. SIL. Sure, it is hers. Ros. Why, 't is a boisterous and a cruel style, A style for challengers; why, she defies me, Like Turk to Christian: woman's gentle brain Could not drop forth such giant rude invention, Such Ethiop words, blacker in their effect Than in their countenance:-Will you hear the letter? SIL. So please you, for I never heard it yet; Yet heard too much of Phebe's cruelty. Ros. She Phebes me: Mark how the tyrant writes. “Art thou god to shepherd turn'd, [Reads. That a maiden's heart hath burn'd ?”— Can a woman rail thus? SIL. Call you this railing? Ros. "Why, thy godhead laid apart, Warr'st thou with a woman's heart ?” Did you ever hear such railing? "Whiles the eye of man did woo me, That could do no vengeance ª to me.- Meaning me a beast.— a "If the scorn of your bright eyne Have power to raise such love in mine, Alack, in me what strange effect Would they work in mild aspect? Whiles you chid me, I did love; How then might your prayers move? He that brings this love to thee Little knows this love in me : a Vengeance-mischief. SCENE III. 1.] 229 AS YOU LIKE IT. And by him seal up thy mind; Whether that thy youth and kindª Will the faithful offer take Of me, and all that I can make ; Or else by him my love deny, And then I'll study how to die." SIL. Call you this chiding? CEL. Alas, poor shepherd! Ros. Do you pity him? no, he deserves no pity.-Wilt thou love such a woman? -What, to make thee an instrument and play false strains upon thee! not to be endured!—Well, go your way to her, (for, I see, love hath made thee a tame snake 21,) and say this to her;-That if she love me, I charge her to love thee if she will not, I will never have her, unless thou entreat for her. -If you be a true lover, hence, and not a word; for here comes more company. : [Exit SILVIUS. Enter OLIVER. OLI. Good morrow, fair ones: Pray you, if you know Where, in the purlieus of this forest, stands A sheep-cote, fenc'd about with olive-trees? CEL. West of this place, down in the neighbour bottom, The rank of osiers, by the murmuring stream, Left on your right handª, brings you to the place : But at this hour the house doth keep itself, There's none within. "The boy is fair, OLI. If that an eye may profit by a tongue, Then should I know you by description; Such garments, and such years: Of female favour, and bestows himself Like a ripe sister: the woman low, And browner than her brother." Are not you The owner of the house I did inquire for? CEL. It is no boast, being ask'd, to say, we are. OLI. Orlando doth commend him to you both; And to that youth, he calls his Rosalind, He sends this bloody napkin; Are you he? Ros. I am: what must we understand by this ? OLI. Some of my shame; if you will know of me What man I am, and how, and why, and where This handkercher was stain'd. CEL. pray you, tell it. a Kind-kindly affections. b Make-make up. C Left on your right hand-being, as you pass, left. 230 [ACT IV. AS YOU LIKE IT. OLI. When last the young Orlando parted from you, He left a promise to return again Within an hour; and, pacing through the forest, Chewing the food of sweet and bitter fancy, Lo, what befel! he threw his eye aside, And, mark, what object did present itself! Under an old oak, whose boughs were moss'd with age, And high top bald with dry antiquity, A wretched ragged man, o'ergrown with hair, Lay sleeping on his back about his neck A green and gilded snake had wreath'd itself, Who with her head, nimble in threats, approach'd The opening of his mouth; but suddenly Seeing Orlando, it unlink'd itself, And with indented glides did slip away Into a bush: under which bush's shade A lioness, with udders all drawn dry, Lay couching, head on ground, with catlike watch, When that the sleeping man should stir; for 't is The royal disposition of that beast, To prey on nothing that doth seem as dead; This seen, Orlando did approach the man, And found it was his brother, his elder brother. CEL. O, I have heard him speak of that same brother; And he did rendera him the most unnatural OLI. That liv'd 'mongst men. And well he might so do, For well I know he was unnatural. Ros. But, to Orlando ;-Did he leave him there, Food to the suck'd and hungry lioness? OLI. Twice did he turn his back, and purpos'd so: But kindness, nobler ever than revenge, And nature, stronger than his just occasion", Made him give battle to the lioness, Who quickly fell before him; in which hurtling From miserable slumber I awaked. CEL. Are you his brother? Ros. Was it you he rescued? CEL. Was 't you that did so oft contrive to kill him? OLI. 'T was I; but 't is not I: I do not shame To tell you what I was, since my conversion So sweetly tastes, being the thing I am. a Render-represent. b Just occasion—such reasonable ground as might have amply justified, or given just occasion for, abandoning him. SCENE III. I.] 231 AS YOU LIKE IT. Ros. But, for the bloody napkin ?— OLI. By and by. When from the first to last, betwixt us two, Tears our recountments had most kindly bath'd, As, howa I came into that desert place; In brief, he led me to the gentle duke, Who gave me fresh array and entertainment, Committing me unto my brother's love; Who led me instantly unto his cave, There stripp'd himself, and here upon his arm The lioness had torn some flesh away, Which all this while had bled; and now he fainted, And cried, in fainting, upon Rosalind. Brief, I recover'd him; bound up his wound; And, after some small space, being strong at heart, He sent me hither, stranger as I am, To tell this story, that you might excuse His broken promise, and to give this napkin, Dyed in this blood, unto the shepherd youth That he in sport doth call his Rosalind. CEL. Why, how now, Ganymede? sweet Ganymede? OLI. Many will swoon when they do look on blood. CEL. There is more in it:-Cousin-Ganymede! OLI. Look, he recovers. Ros. I would I were at home. CEL. We'll lead you thither: I pray you, will you take him by the arm? OLI. Be of good cheer, youth:-You a man ?- You lack a man's heart. [ROSALIND faints. Ros. I do so, I confess it. Ah, sirrab, a body would think this was well counterfeited: I pray you, tell your brother how well I counterfeited.— Heigh ho! OLI. This was not counterfeit; there is too great testimony in your complexion, that it was a passion of earnest. Ros. Counterfeit, I assure you. OLI. Well then, take a good heart, and counterfeit to be a man. Ros. So I do: but, i' faith, I should have been a woman by right. CEL. Come, you look paler and paler; pray you, draw homewards:—Good sir, go with us. a Tears our recountments had most kindly bath'd, b As, how-i. e., with a train of circumstances, "As how.” Ah, sirra. Caldecott says, "Yet scarce more than half in possession of herself, in her flutter and tremulous articulation she adds to one word the first letter, or article, of the succeeding one. For this, the reading of the folios, the modern editors give sir.” 232 [ACT IV. AS YOU LIKE IT. OLI. That will I, for I must bear answer back How you excuse my brother, Rosalind. Ros. I shall devise something: But, I pray you, commend my counterfeiting to him :-Will you go? [Exeunt. [SCENE III. Be of good cheer, youth.”] JW WHIMPER. [SCENE IV. "Here comes a pair of very strange beasts."] ACT V. SCENE I.-The same. Enter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY. TOUCH. We shall find a time, Audrey; patience, gentle Audrey. AUD. 'Faith, the priest was good enough, for all the old gentleman's saying. TOUCH. A most wicked sir Oliver, Audrey, a most vile Mar-text. But, Audrey, there is a youth here in the forest lays claim to you. AtD. Ay, I know who 't is; he hath no interest in me in the world: here comes the man you mean. Enter WILLIAM, Touch. It is meat and drink to me to see a clown: By my troth, we that have good wits have much to answer for; we shall be flouting; we cannot hold. WILL. Good even, Audrey. AUD. God ye good even, William. COMEDIES.-VOL. II. Q 234 [ACT V. AS YOU LIKE IT. WILL. And good even to you, sir. Touch. Good even, gentle friend: Cover thy head, cover thy head; nay, prithee, be covered. How old are you, friend? WILL. Five-and-twenty, sir. TOUCH. A ripe age: Is thy name William? WILL. William, sir. TOUCH. A fair name: Wast born i' the forest here? WILL. Ay, sir, I thank God. TOUCH. Thank God!—a good answer: Art rich? WILL. Faith, sir, so so. TOUCH. So so is good, very good, very excellent good: and yet it is not; it is but so so. Art thou wise? WILL. Ay, sir, I have a pretty wit. TOUCH. Why, thou say'st well. I do now remember a saying; "The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool." The heathen philosopher, when he had a desire to eat a grape, would open his lips when he put it into his mouth; meaning thereby, that grapes were made to eat, and lips to open. You do love this maid? WILL. I do, sir. TOUCH. Give me your hand: Art thou learned? WILL. No, sir. TOUCH. Then learn this of me; To have, is to have: For it is a figure in rhetoric, that drink, being poured out of a cup into a glass, by filling the one doth empty the other: For all your writers do consenta, that ipse is he; now you are not ipse, for I am he. WILL. Which he, sir? TOUCH. He, sir, that must marry this woman: Therefore, you, clown, abandon, which is in the vulgar, leave, the society, which in the boorish is, company, of this female, which in the common is, woman, which together is, abandon the society of this female; or, clown, thou perishest; or, to thy better understanding, diest; or to wit, I kill thee, make thee away, translate thy life into death, thy liberty into bondage: I will deal in poison with thee, or in bastinado, or in steel: I will bandy with thee in faction; I will o'errun thee with policy; I will kill thee a hundred and fifty ways; therefore tremble, and depart. AUD. Do, good William. WILL. God rest you merry, sir. [Exit. Enter CORIN. COR. Our master and mistress seeks you; come, away, away. TOUCH. Trip, Audrey, trip, Audrey ;-I attend, I attend. [Exeunt. a Consent-concur. SCENE II.] 235 AS YOU LIKE IT. SCENE II.-The same. Enter ORLANDO and OLIVER. ORL. Is 't possible, that on so little acquaintance you should like her? that, but seeing, you should love her? and, loving, woo? and, wooing, she should grant? and will you persever to enjoy her? a OLI. Neither call the giddiness of it in question, the poverty of her, the small acquaintance, my sudden wooing, nor her sudden consenting; but say with me, I love Aliena; say with her, that she loves me; consent with both, that we may enjoy each other: it shall be to your good; for my father's house, and all the revenue that was old sir Rowland's, will I estate upon you, and here live and die a shepherd. Enter ROSALIND. b ORL. You have my consent. Let your wedding be to-morrow: thither will I invite the duke, and all his contented followers: Go you, and prepare Aliena; for, look you, here comes my Rosalind. Ros. God save you, brother. OLI. And you, fair sister. Ros. O, my dear Orlando, how it grieves me to see thee wear thy heart in a scarf. ORL. It is my arm. Ros. I thought thy heart had been wounded with the claws of a lion. ORL. Wounded it is, but with the eyes of a lady. Ros. Did your brother tell you how I counterfeited to sound, when he showed me your handkercher? ORL. Ay, and greater wonders than that. Ros. O, I know where you are:-Nay, 't is true: there was never anything so sudden, but the fight of two rams, and Cæsar's thrasonical brag of—“ I came, saw, and overcame:" For your brother and my sister no sooner met, but they looked; no sooner looked, but they loved; no sooner loved, but they sighed; no sooner sighed, but they asked one another the reason; no sooner knew the reason, but they sought the remedy: and in these degrees have they made a pair of stairs to marriage, which they will climb incontinentª, or else be incontinent before marriage: they are in the very wrath of love, and they will together; clubs cannot part them. ORL. They shall be married to-morrow; and I will bid the duke to the nuptial. But, O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes! By so much the more shall I to-morrow be at the height of heart- heaviness, by how much I shall think my brother happy, in having what he wishes for. Ros. Why then, to-morrow I cannot serve your turn for Rosalind? ORL. I can live no longer by thinking. Her, which is necessary to the sense, is not in the original. b Estate-settle. • Sound-swoon. d Incontinent-immediately. * Q 2 236 [ACT V. AS YOU LIKE IT. Ros. I will weary you no longer then with idle talking. Know of me then, (for now I speak to some purpose,) that I know you are a gentleman of good conceit: I speak not this that you should bear a good opinion of my knowledge, insomuch, I say, I know you are; neither do I labour for a greater esteem than may in some little measure draw a belief from you, to do yourself good, and not to grace me. Believe then, if you please, that I can do strange things: I have, since I was three year old, conversed with a magician, most profound in his art, and yet not damnable. If you do love Rosalind so near the heart as your gesture cries it out, when your brother marries Aliena shall you marry her: I know into what straits of fortune she is driven; and it is not impossible to me, if it appear not inconvenient to you, to set her before your eyes to-morrow, human as she is, and without any danger. ORL. Speakest thou in sober meanings? Ros. By my life I do; which I tender dearly, though I say I am a magician : Therefore, put you in your best array, bid your friends; for if you will be married to-morrow, you shall; and to Rosalind, if you will. Enter SILVIUS and PHEBE. Look, here comes a lover of mine, and a lover of hers. PHE. Youth, you have done me much ungentleness, To show the letter that I writ to you. Ros. I care not if I have: it is my study To seem despiteful and ungentle to you: You are there follow'd by a faithful shepherd; Look upon him, love him; he worships you. PHE. Good shepherd, tell this youth what 't is to love. SIL. It is to be all made of sighs and tears;— And so am I for Phebe. PHE. And I for Ganymede. ORL. And I for Rosalind. Ros. And I for no woman. SIL. It is to be all made of faith and service; And so am I for Phebe. PHE. And I for Ganymede. ORL. And I for Rosalind. Ros. And I for no woman. SIL. It is to be all made of fantasy, All made of passion, and all made of wishes; All adoration, duty, and observance, All humbleness, all patience, and impatience, All purity, all trial, all observance; And so am I for Phebe. PHE. And so am I for Ganymede. ORL. And so am I for Rosalind. SCENE III.] 237 AS YOU LIKE IT. Ros. And so am I for no woman. PHE. If this be so, why blame you me to love you? SIL. If this be so, why blame you me to love you? ORL. If this be so, why blame you me to love you? Ros. Who do you speak to, "why blame you me to love you?" ORL. To her, that is not here, nor doth not hear. [TO ROSALIND. [TO PHEBE. Ros. Pray you, no more of this; 't is like the howling of Irish wolves against the moon.—I will help you [to SILVIUS], if I can:-I would love you [to PHEBE], if I could.-To-morrow meet me all together.-I will marry you [to PHEBE], if ever I marry woman, and I'll be married to-morrow:- I will satisfy you [to ORLANDO], if ever I satisfied man, and you shall be married to-morrow:-I will content you [to SILVIUS], if what pleases you contents you, and you shall be married to-morrow.-As you [to ORLANDO] love Rosalind, meet ;-as you [to SILVIUS] love Phebe, meet; And as I love no woman, I'll meet.-So, fare you well; I have left you commands. SIL. I'll not fail, if I live. PHE. ORL. Nor I. Nor I. SCENE III.-The same. Enter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY. [Exeunt. TOUCH. To-morrow is the joyful day, Audrey; to-morrow will we be married. AUD. I do desire it with all my heart and I hope it is no dishonest desire, to desire to be a woman of the world ª. duke's pages. Here come two of the banished Enter two Pages. 1 PAGE. Well met, honest gentleman. TOUCH. By my troth, well met: Come, sit, sit, and a song. 2 PAGE. We are for you: sit i' the middle. 1 PAGE. Shall we clap into 't roundly, without hawking, or spitting, or saying we are hoarse; which are the only prologues to a bad voice? 2 PAGE. I' faith, i' faith; and both in a tune, like two gipsies on a horse. SONG. I. It was a lover and his lass 22, With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, That o'er the green corn-field did pass, In spring time, the only pretty ring time, When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding; Sweet lovers love the spring. a To be married. See 'Much Ado about Nothing,' Act II., Scene 1. b Ring. See Illustration 22, where in the old copy of the music we find the reading of ring- time; in the original it is rang; and Steevens, not knowing of the music, suggested this very 238 [ACT V. AS YOU LIKE IT. II. And therefore take the present time, With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino; For love is crowned with the prime In spring time, &c. III. Between the acres of the rye, With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, These pretty country folks would lie, In spring time, &c. IV. This carol they began that hour, With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, How that a life was but a flower In spring time, &c. TOUCH. Truly, young gentlemen, though there was no great matter in the ditty, yet the note was very untuneable. 1 PAGE. You are deceived, sir; we kept time, we lost not our time. TOUCH. By my troth, yes; I count it but time lost to hear such a foolish song. God be with you; and God mend your voices! Come, Audrey. [Exeunt. SCENE IV.—Another part of the Forest. Enter DUKE senior, AMIENS, JAQUES, ORLANDO, OLIVER, and CELIA. DUKE S. Dost thou believe, Orlando, that the boy Can do all this that he hath promised? OLI. I sometimes do believe, and sometimes do not; As those that fear,—they hope, and know they fear ª. Enter ROSALIND, SILVIUS, and PHEBE. Ros. Patience once more, whiles our compact is urg'd:- You say, if I bring in your Rosalind, You will bestow her on Orlando here? DUKE S. That would I, had I kingdoms to give with her. Ros. And you say, you will have her, when I bring her? [To the DUKE. [To ORLANDO. [TO PHEBE. ORL. That would I, were I of all kingdoms king. Ros. You say, you 'll marry me, if I be willing? PHE. That will I, should I die the hour after. alteration. The original, in the same line, has "the spring time." We omit the, because it is not found in the musical copy. a This is ordinarily pointed, As those that fear they hope," &c. Those who fear, they, even they, hope, while they know they fear. SCENE IV.] 239 AS YOU LIKE IT. Ros. But, if you do refuse to marry me, You'll give yourself to this most faithful shepherd? PHE. So is the bargain. Ros. You say, that you 'll have Phebe, if she will ? SIL. Though to have her and death were both one thing. Ros. I have promis'd to make all this matter even. Keep you your word, O duke, to give your daughter;- You yours, Orlando, to receive his daughter:- Keep you your word, Phebe, that you 'll marry me; Or else, refusing me, to wed this shepherd :— Keep your word, Silvius, that you'll marry her, If she refuse me :-and from hence I go, To make these doubts all even. DUKE S. I do remember in this shepherd-boy Some lively touches of my daughter's favour. ORL. My lord, the first time that I ever saw him, Methought he was a brother to your daughter: But, my good lord, this boy is forest-born; And hath been tutor'd in the rudiments Of many desperate studies by his uncle, Whom he reports to be a great magician, Obscured in the circle of this forest. [TO SILVIUS. [Exeunt Ros. and CELIA. Enter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY. JAQ. There is, sure, another flood toward, and these couples are coming to the ark! Here comes a pair of very strange beasts, which in all tongues are called fools. TOUCH. Salutation and greeting to you all! JAQ. Good my lord, bid him welcome. This is the motley-minded gentleman that I have so often met in the forest: he hath been a courtier, he swears. TOUCH. If any man doubt that, let him put me to my purgation. I have trod a measure; I have flattered a lady; I have been politic with my friend, smooth with mine enemy; I have undone three tailors; I have had four quarrels, and like to have fought one. Jaq. And how was that ta'en up a ? TOUCH. 'Faith, we met, and found the quarrel was upon the seventh cause. Jaq. How, seventh cause?—Good my lord, like this fellow. DUKE S. I like him very well. TOUCH. God 'ild you, sir; I desire you of the like. I press in here, sir, amongst the rest of the country copulatives, to swear, and to forswear; according as marriage binds, and blood breaks: A poor virgin, sir, an ill-favoured thing, sir, but mine own; a poor humour of mine, sir, to take that that no man else will: Rich honesty dwells like a miser, sir, in a poor house; as your pearl in your foul oyster. a Ta'en up-made up. 240 [ACT V. AS YOU LIKE IT. DUKE S. By my faith, he is very swift and sententious. TOUCH. According to the fool's bolt, sir, and such dulcet diseases a. JAQ. But, for the seventh cause; how did you find the quarrel on the seventh cause? TOUCH. Upon a lie seven b, times removed;-Bear your body more seeming b Audrey:—as thus, sir. I did dislike the cut of a certain courtier's beard; he sent me word, if I said his beard was not cut well, he was in the mind it was: This is called the Retort courteous." If I sent him word again it was not well cut, he would send me word, he cut it to please himself: This is called the "Quip modest.” Quip modest." If again, it was not well cut, he disabled © my judgment: This is called the "Reply churlish." If again, it was not well cut, he would answer, I spake not true: This is called the "Reproof valiant.” If again, it was not well cut, he would say, I lie: This is called the "Counter- check quarrelsome:" and so to the "Lie circumstantial," and the "Lie direct." JAQ. And how oft did you say, his beard was not well cut? C "Lie circumstantial," nor he durst not TOUCH. I durst go no further than the " give me the "Lie direct:" and so we measured swords, and parted. JAQ. Can you nominate in order now the degrees of the lie? TOUCH. O sir, we quarrel in print, by the book; as you have books for good manners. I will name you the degrees. The first, the Retort courteous; the second, the Quip modest; the third, the Reply churlish; the fourth, the Reproof valiant; the fifth, the Countercheck quarrelsome; the sixth, the Lie with circumstance; the seventh, the Lie direct. All these you may avoid, but the lie direct; and you may avoid that too, with an If. I knew when seven justices could not take up a quarrel; but when the parties were met themselves, one of them thought but of an If, as, If you said so, then I said so; and they shook hands, and swore brothers. Your If is the only peace-maker; much virtue in Iƒ d. JAQ. Is not this a rare fellow, my lord? he 's as good at anything, and yet a fool. DUKE S. He uses his folly like a stalking-horse, and under the presentation of that he shoots his wit. HYM. Enter HYMEN, leading ROSALIND and CELIA. Still Music. Then is there mirth in heaven, When earthly things made even Atone together e. a This quaint expression has a parallel in another witty clown, our old friend Gobbo:-" The young gentleman (according to the fates and destinies, and such odd sayings, the sisters three, and such branches of learning) is indeed deceased." b Seeming-seemly. Disabled-impeached. See Act IV., Scene 1. d See Illustration of Romeo and Juliet,' Act II., Scene 4. • Atone together—unite. SCENE IV.] 241 AS YOU LIKE IT. Good duke, receive thy daughter, Hymen from heaven brought her, Yea, brought her hither; That thou mightst join her hand with his, Whose heart within her a bosom is. Ros. To you I give myself, for I am yours. To you I give myself, for I am yours. DUKE S. If there be truth in sight, you are my daughter. ORL. If there be truth in sight, you are my Rosalind. PHE: If sight and shape be true, Why then, my love adieu ! Ros. I'll have no father, if you be not he:— I'll have no husband, if you be not he: Nor ne'er wed woman, if you be not she. Peace, ho! I bar confusion: HYM. "T is I must make conclusion Of these most strange events: Here's eight that must take hands, To join in Hymen's bands, If truth holds true contents. You and you no cross shall part: You and you are heart in heart: [TO DUKE S. [To ORLANDO. [TO DUKE S. [To ORLANDO. [TO PHEBE. [To ОRL. and Ros. [To OLI. and CEL. [TO TOUCHSTONE and Audrey. You [to PHEBE] to his love must accord, Or have a woman to your lord :- You and you are sure together, As the winter' to foul weather. Whiles a wedlock-hymn we sing, Feed yourselves with questioning; That reason wonder may diminish, How thus we met, and these things finish. SONG. Wedding is great Juno's crown : O blessed bond of board and bed! 'Tis Hymen peoples every town; High wedlock then be honoured; Honour, high honour and renown, To Hymen, god of every town! DUKE S. O my dear niece, welcome thou art to me; Even daughter, welcome in no less degree. PHE. I will not eat my word; now thou art mine, Thy faith my fancy to thee doth combine. a Her. In this, and in the preceding line, we find his in the original. b Questioning-discoursing. [To SILVIUS. 242 [ACT V. AS YOU LIKE IT. Enter JAQUES DE BOIS. JAQ. DE B. Let me have audience for a word, or two; I am the second son of old sir Rowland, That bring these tidings to this fair assembly: Duke Frederick, hearing how that every day Men of great worth resorted to this forest, Address'da a mighty power; which were on foot In his own conduct, purposely to take His brother here, and put him to the sword: And to the skirts of this wild wood he came Where, meeting with an old religious man, After some question with him, was converted Both from his enterprise, and from the world: His crown bequeathing to his banish'd brother, And all their lands restor'd to them again. That were with him exil'd: This to be true, I do engage my life. DUKE S. Welcome, young man; Thou offer'st fairly to thy brothers' wedding: To one, his lands withheld; and to the other, A land itself at large, a potent dukedom. First, in this forest, let us do those ends. That here were well begun, and well begot: And after, every of this happy number, That have endur'd shrewd days and nights with us, Shall share the good of our returned fortune, According to the measure of their states. Meantime, forget this new-fall'n dignity, And fall into our rustic revelry: Play, music;—and you brides and bridegrooms all, With measure heap'd in joy, to the measures fall. JAQ. Sir, by your patience; If I heard you rightly, The duke hath put on a religious life, And thrown into neglect the pompous court? JAQ. DE B. He hath. JAQ. To him will I out of these convertites There is much matter to be heard and learn'd.— You to your former honour I bequeath ; Your patience, and your virtue, well deserves it:- You [to ORLANDO] to a love that your true faith doth merit:- You [to OLIVER] to your land, and love, and great allies :— You [to SILVIUS] to a long and well-deserved bed ;— And you [to TOUCHSTONE] to wrangling; for thy loving voyage a Address'd—prepared. [TO DUKE S. SCENE IV.] 243 AS YOU LIKE IT. Is but for two months victuall'd:-So to your pleasures; I am for other than for dancing measures. DUKE S. Stay, Jaques, stay. JAQ. To see no pastime I:—what you would have I'll stay to know at your abandon'd cave. DUKE S. Proceed, proceed: we will begin these rites, And we do trust they 'll end in true delights. [Exit. [A dance. EPILOGUE. Ros. It is not the fashion to see the lady the epilogue: but it is no more unhandsome, than to see the lord the prologue. If it be true, that “good wine needs no bush," 't is true, that a good play needs no epilogue: Yet to good wine they do use good bushes; and good plays prove the better for the help of good epilogues. What a case am I in then, that am neither a good epilogue, nor cannot insinuate with you in the behalf of a good play! I am not furnished like a beggar, therefore to beg will not become me my way is, to conjure you; and I'll begin with the women. I charge you, O women, for the love you bear to men, to like as much of this play as please you : and I charge you, O men, for the love you bear to women, (as I perceive by your simpering, none of you hates them,) that between you and the women, the play may please. If I were a womanª, I would kiss as many of you as had beards that pleased me, complexions that liked me, and breaths that I defied not: and, I am sure, as many as have good beards, or good faces, or sweet breaths, will, for my kind offer, when I make curtsy, bid me farewell. a [Exeunt. 2 Tieck says this alludes to the practice in Shakspere's times of the female parts being played by men. For thus-though "the lady" speaks the epilogue, she has passed out of her dramatic character. ILLUSTRATIONS. ACT I. ¹ SCENE I.-"Fleet the time carelessly, as they forth. But I dare not say that this seeming did in the golden world.” In the 'Studies of Shakspere,' at page 300, we have explained our reasons for adopting the belief that Shakspere, in his dramatic repre- sentations of the mode of life in the forest of Arden, had especial regard to an imaginary state of ease and content, such as is described to have belonged to the golden age. We sub- join a passage from Fanshawe's translation of Guarini's 'Pastor Fido,' which illustrates the text, and in some degree confirms our general opinion: "Fair Golden Age! when milk was th' only food, And cradle of the infant world the wood Rock'd by the winds; and th' untouch'd flocks did bear Their dear young for themselves! None yet did fear The sword or poison: no black thoughts begun T' eclipse the light of the eternal sun : Nor wand'ring pines unto a foreign shore Or war, or riches (a worse mischief), bore. That pompous sound, idol of vanity, Made up of title, pride, and flattery, Which they call honour whom ambition blinds, Was not as yet the tyrant of our minds. But to buy real goods with honest toil Amongst the woods and flocks, to use no guile, Was honour to those sober souls that knew No happiness but what from virtue grew." 2 SCENE I.—“ Of all sorts enchantingly beloved." We subjoin a note of Coleridge which is con- ceived in his usual inquiring spirit, and is therefore worthy of consideration :— "It is too venturous to charge a passage in Shakspeare with want of truth to nature; and yet at first sight this speech of Oliver's ex- presses truths which it seems almost impossible that any mind should so distinctly, so livelily, and so voluntarily, have presented to itself in connection with feelings and intentions so ma- lignant and so contrary to those which the qualities expressed would naturally have called unnaturalness is not in the nature of an abused wilfulness, when united with a strong intellect. In such characters there is sometimes a gloomy self-gratification in making the absoluteness of the will (sit pro ratione voluntas!) evident to themselves by setting the reason and the con- science in full array against it."—(Literary Remains,' vol. ii. p. 116. 3 SCENE II. My better parts Are all thrown down; and that which here stands up Is but a QUINTAIN, a mere lifeless block." The origin and use of the quintain are thus described in The Pictorial History of Eng- land:'-"A pole or spear was set upright in the ground, with a shield strongly bound to it, and against this the youth tilted with his lance in full career, endeavouring to burst the ligatures of the shield, and bear it to the earth. A steady aim and a firm seat were acquired from this exercise, a severe fall being often the con- sequence of a failure in the attempt to strike down the shield. This, however, at the best, was but a monotonous exercise, and therefore the pole, in process of time, was supplanted by the more stimulating figure of a misbelieving Saracen, armed at all points, and brandishing a formidable wooden sabre. The puppet moved freely upon a pivot or spindle, so that, unless it was struck with the lance adroitly in the centre of the face or breast, it rapidly revolved, and the sword, in consequence, smote the back of the assailant in his career, amidst the laughter of the spectators." The lifeless block is clearly an allusion to the wooden man thus described. The quintain was, however, often formed only of a broad plank on one side of the pivot, with a sandbag suspended on the other side. SCENE J.] 245 AS YOU LIKE IT. ACT II. ¹ SCENE I.—“ Here feel we not the penalty of The song of Amiens in the fifth scene of this Adam," &c. THEOBALD says, "What was the penalty of Adam hinted at by our poet? The being "J sensible of the difference of the seasons. The Duke says the cold and effects of the winter feelingly persuade him what he is. How does he not then feel the penalty?" Boswell-and Caldecott agrees with him—replies, "Surely the old reading is right. Here we feel not, do not suffer from, the penalty of Adam, the seasons' difference; for when the winter's wind blows upon my body, I smile, and say—' But whilst restoring not, we do not assent to this inter- pretation; and, following a suggestion of Mr. Whiter, we have pointed the passage very dif- ferently from the usual mode; for, we ask again, what is "the penalty of Adam"? All the com- mentators say, "the seasons' difference." On the contrary, it was, “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." Milton represents the Milton represents the repentant Adam as thus interpreting the penalty :- "On me the curse aslope with labour I must earn Glanc'd on the ground; My bread; what harm? Idleness had been worse." The beautiful passage in Cowper's 'Task,' de- scribing the Thresher, will also occur to the reader :- "" "See him sweating o'er his bread Before he eats it. 'Tis the primal curse, But soften'd into mercy; made the pledge Of cheerful days, and nights without a groan.' "The seasons' difference," it must be remembered, was ordained before the Fall, and was in no re- spect a penalty. We may therefore reject the received interpretation. But how could the Duke say, receiving the passage in the sense we have suggested, "Here feel we not the penalty of Adam"? In the first Act, Charles the wrestler, describing the Duke and his co-mates, says, they "fleet the time carelessly as they did in the golden world." | One of the characteristics of the golden world is thus described by Daniel :— "Oh! happy golden age ! Not for that rivers ran With streams of milk and honey dropp'd from trees; Not that the earth did gage Unto the husbandman Her voluntary fruits, free without fees." Act conveys, we think, the same allusion:- "Who doth ambition shun, And loves to live i' the sun, Seeking the food he eats, " And pleas'd with what he gets.' The exiled courtiers led a life without toil-a life in which they were contented with a little and they were thus exempt from "the penalty of Adam." We close, therefore, the sentence at "Adam." "The seasons' difference" is now the antecedent of "these are counsellors;' -the freedom of construction common to Shakspere and the poets of his time fully warranting this acceptation of the reading. In this way, the Duke says, The differences of the seasons are counsellors that teach me what I am;-as, for example, the winter's wind-which when it blows upon my body, I smile, and say, this is no flattery. We may add that, immediately following the lines we have quoted from the 'Paradise Lost,' Adam alludes to "the seasons' difference," but in no respect as part of the curse :- "With labour I must earn My bread; what harm? Idleness had been worse; My labour will sustain me; and lest cold Or heat should injure us, his timely care Hath unbesought provided, and his hands Cloth'd us unworthy, pitying while He judg'd. How much more, if we pray Him, will his ear Be open, and His heart to pity incline, And teach us further by what means to shun Th' inclement seasons, rain, ice, hail, and snow!" Book x. << 5 SCENE I. Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head." It has sometimes been supposed that the "precious jewel" refers only to the brilliancy of the toad's eyes, as contrasted with its ugly form. But we think there can be no doubt it referred to a common superstition, with which Shakspere's audience was familiar. This, like many other vulgar errors, is ancient and uni- versal. Pliny tells us of the wonderful quali- ties of a bone found in the right side of a toad. In India it is a common notion that some species of serpents have precious stones in their heads. Our old credulous writers upon natural history, who dwelt with delight upon "notable things" and "secret wonders," are as precise 246 [ACT II. ILLUSTRATIONS. about the toad's stone as a modern geologist is about quartz. Edward Fenton, in 1569, tells us "there is found in heads of old and great toads a stone which they call borax, or stelon: it is most commonly found in the head of a he- toad." These toad-stones, it should seem, were not only specifics against poison when taken internally, but "being used in rings gave fore- warning against venom." There were, of course, many counterfeit stones, procured by a much easier process than that of toad-hunting; but the old lapidaries had an infallible mode of discovering the true from the false. "You shall know whether the toad-stone be the right and perfect stone or not. Hold the stone before a toad, so that he may see it; and if it be a right and true stone the toad will leap toward it and make as though he would snatch it. He envieth so much that men should have that stone." Shakspere, in the passage before us, has taken the superstition out of the hands of the ignorant believers in its literality, and has transmuted it into a poetical truth. 6 SCENE I. "The big round tears Cours'd one another down his innocent nose In piteous chase.” The ancient naturalist Bartholomæus says,- "When the hart is arered (followed close) he fleeth to a ryver or ponde, and roreth, cryeth, and wepeth when he is take." The tame stag wounded by Ascanius (Virgil, Æneid,' vii.) has been referred to by the commentators as sug- gesting this passage :— "Saucius at quadrupes nota intra tecta refugit, Successitque gemens stabulis; questuque cruentus Atque imploranti similis tectum omne replevit." We have here "the groans" but not "the tears." Drayton makes the same use of the popular belief as Shakspere :- "The hunter co ning in to help his wearied hounds He desperately assails; until oppress'd by force, He, who the mourner is to his own dying corse, Upon the ruthless earth his precious tears lets fall." (Poly-Olbion. Song 13.) 7 SCENE V.-" Nay, I care not for their names; they owe me nothing.” In the variorum editions we have no expla nation of this passage. Mr. Caldecott says that it is an allusion to the Latin phrase nomina facere, as applied to debtor and creditor in the Roman law. He adds, "We have shown that the phraseology of our courts of justice, and the names of their officers and process, were in universal use with our ancestors, and that as well in the pulpit as in common life and upon the stage; but through what channel Shake- speare became acquainted with so much of the practical part of the Roman law, which it is pretty plain his commentators had not at their fingers' ends, we in our turn leave to the reader to say." 8 SCENE V. "Ducdàme, ducdàme, ducdàme.” Hanmer turned this into Latin-duc ad me. When Amiens asks "What's that ducdàme?" Jaques replies, ""T is a Greek invocation." It was not in the character of Jaques to talk Latin in this place. He was parodying the "Come hither, come hither, come hither,” of the previous song. The conjecture, therefore, that he was using some country call of a woman to her ducks, appears much more rational than his latinity. 9 SCENE VII." And then he drew a dial from his poke." "There's no clock in the forest," says Orlando, and it was not very likely that the fool would have a pocket clock. What then was the dial that he took from his poke? We have lately become possessed of a rude instrument kindly presented to us by a friend, which, as the Maid of Orleans found her sword, he picked "out of a deal of old iron." It is a brass circle of about two inches diameter: on the outer side are engraved letters indicating the names of the months, with graduated divisions; and on the SCENE VII.] 247 AS YOU LIKE IT. inner side the hours of the day. The brass circle itself is to be held in one position by a ring; but there is an inner slide in which there is a small orifice. This slide being moved so that the hole stands opposite the division of the month when the day falls of which we desire to know the time, the circle is held up opposite the The inner side is of course then in shade; but the sunbeam shines through the little orifice and forms a point of light upon the hour marked on the inner side. We have tried this dial and found it give the hour with great exactness. sun. but occasionally of silver, or even of gold; they were commonly used for purposes of calculation, in abbeys and other places, where the revenues were complex and of difficult adjustment: the figure represents a person employed in the arithmetical process with counters. From their being found among the ruins of English abbeys they are usually termed abbey-counters. They have been principally coined abroad, parti- cularly at Nürnberg (see Snelling's Treatise on Jettons'), though some few have been struck in England since the reign of Henry VIII. The most ancient bear on both sides crosses, pellets, 10 SCENE VII." What, for a counter, would I and globes; the more modern have portraits do but good?" The wager proposed by Jaques was not a very heavy one. Jettons or counters, which are small and very thin, are generally of copper or brass, and dates and heraldic arms on the reverse. The legends are at times religious, and at others Gardez vous de mescompter, and the like. ABC JE FCHIK MNOP SRSTV X Y Z Z ទ I SCENE VII. "Let me see wherein My tongue hath wrong'd him," &c. Tieck observes that this speech of Jaques has great resemblance to B. Jonson's Prologue to ‘Every Man out of his Humour,' and that much in this character has more or less resemblance to Jonson, and to his sarcastic style. The fol- lowing lines of that Prologue clearly resemble the passage we refer to above :— "If any here chance to behold himself, Let him not dare to challenge me of wrong; For, if he shame to have his follies known, First, he should shame to act 'em: my strict hand Was made to seize on vice, and with a gripe Squeeze out the humour of such spongy souls As lick up every idle vanity.' "" If we could determine which play was first represented, and could be certain that 'Every Man out of his Humour' preceded 'As You Like It,' we should have an interesting key to the principle which Shakspere had in his mind in the construction of the character of Jaques. As we understand the character he is a satire upon satirists. The whole tone of Ben Jonson's Prologue is not merely satirical,-it is furious. The play was first acted in 1599. If 'As You Like It' may be assigned to 1600, we have little doubt that the Jaques of Shakspere was in- tended to glance at the Asper of Jonson,—the name by which he chose to designate himself, as one of an ingenious and free spirit, eager and constant in reproof, without fear controlling the world's abuses." 12 SCENE VII.—" All the world's a stage.” This celebrated comparison had been made by Shakspere in another play, written, there can be little doubt, before this :- "I hold the world, but as the world, Gratiano, A stage, where every man must play a part.” ('Merchant of Venice.") It is scarcely necessary to inquire whether Shakspere found the idea in the Greek epi- gram :- H Σκηνὴ πᾶς ὁ βίος, καὶ παίγνιον. ἢ μάθε παίζειν, Τὴν σπουδὴν μεταθεῖς, ἢ φέρε τὰς ὁδύνας. "This life a theatre we well may call, Where every actor must perform with art; Or laugh it through, and make a farce of all, Or learn to bear with grace his tragic part." (Anonymous, in Bland's Selections from the Greek Anthology.') The idea had almost passed into a proverb ; and even a Latin Dictionary, published in 1599, x 248 [ACT III. ILLUSTRATIONS. gives us the following passage:-"This life is a certain interlude or play. The world is a stage full of change every way; every man is a player." The division of life into seven ages by Hippo- crates and Proclus was probably familiar to Shakspere; and the commentators say that there was an old emblematical print represent- ing a human being in each stage. But, where- ever the general idea was to be found, who but Shakspere could have created the wonderful individualisation of the several changes? ACT III. 13 SCENE II.—" Helen's cheek, but not her heart; Cleopatra's majesty ; Atalanta's better part; Sad Lucretia's modesty." MR. WHITER'S explanation of this passage, in illustration of his theory of the Association of Ideas, is very ingenious. We are compelled to abridge it, by which process the chain of reason- ing may be somewhat impaired :- "I have always been firmly persuaded that the imagery which our poet has selected to discriminate the more prominent perfections of Helen, Cleopatra, Atalanta, and Lucretia, was not derived from the abstract consideration of their general qualities; but was caught from those peculiar traits of beauty and character which are impressed on the mind of him who contemplates their portraits. It is well known that these celebrated heroines of romance were in the days of our poet the favourite subjects of popular representation, and were alike visible in the coarse hangings of the poor and the magnificent arras of the rich. In the portraits of Helen, whether they were produced by the skilful artist or his ruder imitator, though her face would certainly be delineated as eminently beautiful, yet she appears not to have been adorned with any of those charms which are allied to modesty; and we accordingly find that she was generally depicted with a loose and insidious countenance, which but too mani- festly betrayed the inward wantonness and per- fidy of her heart. * With respect to the majesty of Cleopatra, it may be observed that this notion is not derived from classical autho- rity, but from the more popular storehouse of legend and romance. * I infer there- fore that the familiarity of this image was impressed both on the poet and his reader from ** pictures or representations in tapestry, which were the lively and faithful mirrors of popular romances.—A talanta, we know, was considered likewise by our ancient poets as a celebrated beauty; and we may be assured therefore that her portraits were everywhere to be found. **** Since the story of Atalanta represents that heroine as possessed of singular beauty, zealous to preserve her virginity, even with the death of her lovers, and accomplishing her purposes by extraordinary swiftness in running, we may be assured that the skill of the artist would be employed in displaying the most perfect expressions of virgin purity, and in delineating the fine proportions and elegant symmetry of her person.-' Lucretia' (we know) was the grand example of conjugal fidelity throughout the Gothic ages;' and it is this spirit of unshaken chastity which is here cele- brated under the title of modesty. Such, then, are the wishes of the lover in the formation of his mistress, that the ripe and brilliant beauties of Helen should be united to the elegant symmetry and virgin graces of Ata- lanta; and that this union of charms should be still dignified and ennobled by the majestic mien of Cleopatra and the matron modesty of Lucretia." * * * 14 SCENE II.—“I was never so be-rhymed since Pythagoras' time, that I was an Irish rat.” How rats were rhymed, and rhymed to death it should seem, in Ireland, does not very dis- tinctly appear; but the allusion was very com- mon. Sydney, Jonson, Randolph, and Donne, each mention this remarkable property of Irish poetry. The rats have suffered more from the orators in modern times. SCENE II.] 249 AS YOU LIKE IT. 15 SCENE II." I answer you right painted cloth, from whence you have studied your questions." A specimen of painted cloth language in the time of Shakspere is cited by Malone from a tract of 1601-'No whipping nor tripping :'- "Read what is written on the painted cloth. Do no man wrong; be good unto the poor; Beware the mouse, the maggot, and the moth; And ever have an eye unto the door." A much earlier specimen of these moral or- naments occurs in Gough's 'Sepulchral Monu- ments.' It is a copy of a painting formerly placed against the wall within the Hungerford Chapel, Salisbury Cathedral, which chapel was totally pulled down in 1789. It represents a gentleman dressed in the full style of fashion of the reign of Edward IV. His fingers covered with rings, his shoes extra- vagantly long and pointed, and his whole dress ! He holds up one a perfect specimen of foppery. hand in terror at the sight of Death, who ap- proaches him in a shroud, and has a coffin at his feet. The dialogue between them is painted on the labels over their heads, and runs thus:- Over the Gentleman : "Alasse, Dethe, alasse, a blessful thing yo were Yf thow woldyst spare us in our lustynesse And hi to wretches yt bethe of hevy chere When they ye clepe to slake there dystresse. But owte alasse thyne owne sely selfwyldnesse Crewelly werieth them yt seyghe wayle and wepe To close there yen yt after ye doth clepe." Over Death: "Grasles galante in all thy luste and pryde Reme❜byr, yt thow ones schalte dye. Deth shold fro thy body thy sowle devyde Thou mayst him not ascape certaynly. To ye dede bodys cast doune thyne ye Behold thaym well, consydere and see For such as thay ar, such shalt yow be." n اديلان AAAWW WABAIN MALKS KONANIUGYE MOINNI " NINAMIMIIBMAURSINWINSTON- MEMNUNDRUNG VON GALE A wwwwwww.TAKE STR abc the COMEDIES.-VOL. II. R 250 [ACT III. ILLUSTRATIONS. 16 SCENE III.-" The ox hath his bow." The commentators say that the ancient yoke resembled a bow; and so, they might have added, does the modern. The following repre- sentation of the Suffolk yoke will show how un- changing some agricultural fashions are :— 17 SCENE III." The falcon her bells." Master Stephen, in 'Every Man in his Humour,' says, "I have bought me a hawk and a hood, and bells and all." Gervase Mark- ham, in his edition of 'The Boke of St. Albans,' says, "The bells which your hawk shall wear, look in anywise that they be not too heavy, whereby they overload her, neither that one be heavier than another, but both of like weight: look also that they be well sounding and shrill, yet not both of one sound, but one at least a note under the other." 7 18 SCENE V.— “Dead shepherd! now I find thy saw of might ; 'Who ever lov'd, that lov'd not at first sight?”” The "dead shepherd" is Marlowe; the "saw of might" is in the 'Hero and Leander,' first published in 1598:- "It lies not in our power to love or hate, For will in us is overrul'd by fate. When two are stripp'd, long ere the course begin We wish that one should lose, the other win ; And one especially do we affect Of two gold ingots, like in each respect : The reason no man knows; let it suffice, What we behold is censur'd by our eyes. Where both deliberate the love is slight: Who ever lov'd, that lov'd not at first sight ?” SCENE II.] 251 AS YOU LIKE IT. [Hellespont.] SSLY. ACT IV. 19 SCENE 1.-" Good youth, he went but forth to wash him in the Hellespont, and, being taken with the cramp, was drowned." THIS pretty banter of Rosalind is but a thin disguise of her real feelings. She thinks of the "good youth,” and of "Hero of Sestos," much more in the spirit of the following beautiful lines of Byron :— "The winds are high on Helle's wave, As on that night of stormy water When Love, who sent, forgot to save The young, the beautiful, the brave, The lonely hope of Sestos' daughter. Oh! when alone along the sky Her turret-torch was blazing high, Though rising gale, and breaking foam, And shrieking sea-birds warn'd him home; And clouds aloft and tides below, With signs and sounds, forbade to go, He could not see, he would not hear, Or sound or sign foreboding fear; His eye but saw that light of love, The only star it hail'd above; His ear but rang with Hero's song, 'Ye waves, divide not lovers long!'- That tale is old, but love anew May nerve young hearts to prove as true." ('Bride of Abydos.') | CAN; or, a Choice Collection of Catches, Rounds, &c., collected and published by John Hilton, Batch. in Musicke, 1652;' and is there called a catch, though, as in the case of many other compositions of the kind so denominated, it is a round, having no catch, or play upon the words, to give it any claim to the former desig- nation. It is written for four bases, but by transposition for other voices would be rather improved than damaged. John Hilton, one of the best and most active composers of his day, was organist of St. Margaret's, Westminster. His name is affixed to one of the madrigals in "The Triumphs of Oriana,' a work published in 1601, previously to which he was admitted, by the University of Cambridge, as a Bachelor in Music. Hence he was of Shakspere's time, and it is as reasonable to presume as agreeable to believe that a piece of vocal harmony so good and so pleasing, its age considered, formed a part of one of the most delightful of the great poet's dramas. In Hilton's round, the brief line, "Then sing him home," is rejected. The omission was unavoidable in a round for four 20 SCENE II.—“ What shall he have that kill'd voices, because in a composition of such limit, the deer ?" The music to this "song" is from a curious and very rare work, entitled 'CATCH THAT CATCH and so arranged, it was necessary to give one couplet, and neither more nor less, to each part. But it is doubtful whether that line really forms R 2 252 [ACT IV. ILLUSTRATIONS. 1 3 Gaily. 233 b4 What shall he have that kill'd the deer? His Take thou no scorn, to wear the horn, It 3 3:3 b4 Thy fa ther's fa ther bore it, 4 23 4 The horn, the horn, the lus ty horn, Is 1st 33 time. 5-4 2nd. 3rd. b 4th. part of the original text. Printed as one line home" may be a direction for a stage proces we have, "Then sing him home, the rest shall bear thiş burthen," without any variation of type. Is the whole of the line a stage-direction? “Then sing him sion. Mr. Oliphant, in his useful and entertain- ing 'Musa Madrigalesca' (1837), doubts whether the John Hilton, the author of the 'Oriana' madrigal, could have been the same that subse- SCENE II.] 253 AS YOU LIKE IT. 2 lea ther skin, and horns to wear. #e 3 was a crest ere thou wast born. And thy fa - ther wore #e- 蛙 ​it. not а thing to laugh to scorn. 4 1 [00 # 이 ​ACCOMPANIMENT. quently published 'Catch that Catch can,' as | Shakspere's plays, as is supposed to have been well as another work which he names. This is originally sung in them, or that may have been a question into which we shall not enter, our introduced in them shortly after their pro- only object being to give such music, as part of | duction. 254 [ACT V. ILLUSTRATIONS. 21 SCENE III.—“I see, love hath made thee a quently used to express a poor contemptible tame snake." Upon this passage the commentators simply say, "This term was, in our author's time, fre- fellow." We have no doubt that the allusion was to the snake made harmless by the serpent- charmer. [Serpent Charmers of India.] ACT V. "" 22 SCENE III." It was a lover, and his lass: IN the Signet-Office library at Edinburgh is a MS. in 4to., formerly in the possession of Mr. Heber, containing many songs set to music, and among them the following. It seems quite clear that this manuscript cannot have been written later than sixteen years after the publication of the present play, and may have existed at a much earlier period; it is, therefore, not strain- ing probability too hard to suppose that the air here inserted was, in some form-most likely as Lively. a duet, unless the two pages sang in unison- performed in the play, either as this was origin- ally acted, or not long after its production. But whether our conjecture-and only as such we offer it-be well or ill founded, there can be no doubt that the composition is one of those which, in musical chronology, is classed as ancient. We here give it, with the simple and modern accompaniment, as it is printed in the 'Collection of National Airs,' edited by Mr. Chappell (vol. i. p. 81), a valuable work, to which we have before been indebted. م It Was а lo ver and his lass, With a hey, with а ho, with a D: 2 b4 COSTUME. 255 D hey non ne no, and a hey - no nee no, ni no, · • That o'er the greene corne field did passe In spring tyme, in spring tyme, in spring tyme, in spring tyme, The on - lie prettie ring tyme, When birds doo sing, Hey ding a ding a ding, Hey D LL ding a ding a ding, Hey ding a ding a ding; Sueet lovers love the spring. COSTUME. Although Shakspere has not given a name either to the duchy in which the scene is laid, or the duke who has been deprived of it, we have one point to guide us in our selection of the costume of this exquisite comedy,-namely, the circumstance of an independent duchy in France. The action must therefore be supposed to take place before the union of the great fiefs to the crown, and consequently not later than the reign of Louis XII., whose marriage with Anne of Brittany incorporated that last and most independent province with the royal do- minions. Illuminations of the reign of Charles VIII., the immediate predecessor of Louis XII., have been elsewhere suggestedª as furnishing a picturesque and appropriate costume for the usurping duke and his courtiers, and a MS. in the Royal Library at Paris (Rondeaux Chants a 'Costume of Shakespear's Comedy of As You Like It, by J. R. Planché.' 12mo, London, 1825. 256 COSTUME. Royal, No. 6989) as supplying the hunting dress of the time. Many of the former are engraved in Montfaucon's 'Monarchie Française,' and some figures from the latter will be found in Mons. Willemin's superb work, 'Monumens inédites, &c.' The dress of a shepherd of this period may be found in Pynson's 'Shepherd's Kalendar:' and the splendid Harleian MS. No. 4425, presents us with the ordinary habits of an ecclesiastic when not clad in the sacred vestments of his office or order. tation on the clowns of Shakspere, has made the following remarks on the dress of this cha- racter:-"Touchstone is the domestic fool of Frederick, the duke's brother, and belongs to the class of witty or allowed fools. He is threatened with the whip, a mode of chastise- ment which was often inflicted on these motley personages. His dress should be a party- coloured garment. He should occasionally carry a bauble in his hand and wear ape's ears to his hood, which is probably the head-dress The late Mr. Douce, in his admirable disser- intended by Shakespeare, there being no allu- sion whatever to a cock's head or a comb." * See also Modus le Roy. Livre de Chasse.' Folio, Chambery, 1486. གཟ [Forest of Arden.] འ་ 市 ​TWELFTH NIGHT: OR WHAT YOU WILL S. S --2-2 Y. Sc.. JELEN !! INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. THIS comedy was first printed in the folio edition of 1623. The text is divided into acts and scenes; and the order of these has been undisturbed in the modern editions. With the exception of a few manifest typo- | graphical errors, the original copy is remark- ably correct. It was formerly supposed that this charm- ing comedy was written by Shakspere late in life. But there was found in the British Museum, in 1828, a little manuscript diary of a student of the Middle Temple, ex- tending from 1601 to 1603, which leaves no doubt that the play was publicly acted at the Candlemas feast of the Middle Temple in 1602; and it belongs, therefore, to the first year of the seventeenth century, or the last of the sixteenth; for it is not found in the list of Meres, in 1598. It is scarcely necessary to enter into any analysis of the plot of this delightful comedy, or attempt any dissection of its characters, for the purpose of opening to the reader new sources of enjoyment. It is impossible, we think, for one of ordinary sensibility to read through the first Act without yielding him- self up to the genial temper in which the entire play is written. "The sunshine of the breast” spreads its rich purple light over the whole champain, and penetrates into every thicket and every dingle. From the first line to the last-from the Duke's "That strain again;-it had a dying fall," to the Clown's sweetest and tenderest emotion that ever informed the heart of the purest and most graceful of beings with a spirit almost divine. Perhaps in the whole range of Shakspere's poetry there is nothing which comes more unbidden into the mind, and always in con- nection with some image of the ethereal beauty of the utterer, than Viola's "She never told her love." The love of Olivia, wilful as it is, is not in the slightest degree repulsive. With the old stories before him, nothing but the refined delicacy of Shak- spere's conception of the female character could have redeemed Olivia from approach- ing to the anti-feminine. But as it is, we pity her, and we rejoice with her. These are what may be called the serious characters, because they are the vehicles for what we emphatically call the poetry of the play. But the comic characters are to us equally poetical—that is, they appear to us not mere copies of the representatives of temporary or individual follies, but embodyings of the universal comic, as true and as fresh to-day as they were two centuries and a half ago. Malvolio is to our minds as poetical as Don Quixote; and we are by no means sure that Shakspere meant the poor cross-gartered steward only to be laughed at, any more than Cervantes did the knight of the rueful coun- tenance. He meant us to pity him, as Olivia and the Duke pitied him; for, in truth, the delusion by which Malvolio was wrecked, only passed out of the romantic into the comic through the manifestation of the vanity of the character in reference to his situation. But if we laugh at Malvolio we are not to laugh ill-naturedly, for the poet has conducted all the mischief against him in a spirit in which there is no real malice at the bottom of the fun. Sir Toby is a most genuine character,-one given to strong potations and boisterous merriment; but with a humour about him perfectly irre- His abandon to the instant op- "With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,” there is not a thought, nor a situation, that is not calculated to call forth pleasurable feelings. The love-melancholy of the Duke is a luxurious abandonment to one pervading impression-not a fierce and hopeless contest with one o'ermastering passion. It delights to lie "canopied with bowers,"-to listen to "old and antique" songs, which dally with its "innocence," to be "full of shapes," and high fantastical." The love of Viola is thesistible. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 259 portunity of laughing at and with others is something so thoroughly English, that we are not surprised the poet gave him an Eng- lish name. And like all genuine humorists, Sir Toby must have his butt. What a trio is presented in that glorious scene of the second Act, where the two Knights and the Clown "make the welkin dance; "—the hu- morist, the fool, and the philosopher;-for Sir Andrew is the fool, and the Clown is the philosopher! We hold the Clown's epilogue song to be the most philosophical Clown's song upon record; and a treatise might be written upon its wisdom. It is the history of a life, from the condition of "a little tiny boy," through "man's estate," to decaying age-" when I came unto my bed;" and the conclusion is, that what is true of the in- dividual is true of the species, and what was of yesterday was of generations long passed away-for "A great while ago the world begun." Steevens says this "nonsensical ditty" is utterly unconnected with the subject of the comedy. We think he is mistaken. www [Tarleton.] ་ 8 2 PERSONS REPRESENTED. ORSINO, Duke of Illyria. Appears, Act I. sc. 1; sc. 4. Act II. sc. 4. Act V. sc. 1. SEBASTIAN, a young gentleman, brother to Viola. Appears, Act II. sc. 1. Act III. sc. 3. Act IV. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act V. sc. 1. ANTONIO, a sea-captain, friend to Sebastian. Appears, Act II. sc. 1. Act III. sc. 3; sc. 4. Act V. sc. 1. A Sea-Captain, friend to Viola. Appears, Act I. sc. 2. VALENTINE, a gentleman attending on the Duke. Appears, Act I. sc. 1; sc. 4. CURIO, a gentleman attending on the Duke. Appears, Act I. sc. 1; sc. 4. Act II. sc. 4. SIR TOBY BELCH, uncle to Olivia. Appears, Act I. sc. 3; sc. 5. Act II. sc. 3; sc. 5. Act III. sc. 1; sc. 2; sc. 4. Act IV. sc. 1; sc. 2. Act V. sc. 1. SIR ANDREW AGUE-CHEEK, Appears, Act I. sc. 3. Act II. sc. 3; sc. 5. Act III. sc. 1; sc. 2; sc. 4. Act IV. sc. 1. Act V. sc. 1. MALVOLIO, steward to Olivia. Appears, Act I. sc. 5. Act II. sc. 2; sc. 3; sc.5. Act III. sc. 4. Act IV. sc. 2. Act V. sc. 1. FABIAN, servant to Olivia. Appears, Act II. sc. 5. Act III. sc. 2; sc. 4. Act IV. sc. 1. Act V. sc. 1. Clown, servant to Olivia. Appears, Act I. sc. 5. Act II. sc. 3; sc. 4. Act III. sc. 1. Act IV. sc. 1; sc. 2. Act V. sc. 1. OLIVIA, a rich Countess. Appears, Act I. sc. 5. Act III. sc. 1; sc. 4. Act IV. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act V. sc. 1. VIOLA, in love with the Duke. Appears, Act I. sc. 2; sc. 4; sc. 5. Act II. sc. 2; sc. 4. Act III. sc. 1; sc. 4. Act V. sc. 1. MARIA, Olivia's woman. Appears, Act I. sc. 3; sc. 5. Act II. sc. 3; sc. 5. Act III. sc. 1; sc. 2; sc. 4. Act IV. sc. 2. Lords, Priests, Sailors, Officers, Musicians, and other attendants. SCENE, A CITY IN ILLYRIA; AND THE SEA-COAST NEAR IT. Kang 00 [SCENE II." This is Illyria, lady."] 1925. WELAAS, ACT I. SCENE I.—An Apartment in the Duke's Palace. Enter DUKE, CURIO, Lords; Musicians attending. DUKE. If music be the food of love, play on, Give me excess of it; that, surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die. That strain again;—it had a dying fall¹: O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound a That breathes upon a bank of violets, Stealing, and giving odour.-Enough; no more; 'T is not so sweet now as it was before. O spirit of love, how quick and fresh art thou! a Like the sweet sound. To those who are familiar with the well-known text, "O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet south," the restoration of the word sound, which is the reading of all the early editions, will at first ap- pear strange and startling. The change from sound to south was made by Pope. See Illustration 2. 262 [ACT I. TWELFTH NIGHT. That, notwithstanding thy capacity Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there, Of what validity and pitch soe'er, But falls into abatement and low price, Even in a minute! so full of shapes is fancy, That it alone is high-fantastical. CUR. Will you go hunt, my lord? DUKE. CUR. What, Curio? The hart. DUKE. Why, so I do, the noblest that I have: O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first, (Methought she purg'd the air of pestilence a,) That instant was I turn'd into a hart; And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds, E'er since pursue me³.-How now? what news from her? Enter VALENTINE. VAL. So please my lord, I might not be admitted, But from her handmaid do return this answer: The element itself, till seven years heat, Shall not behold her face at ample view; But, like a cloistress, she will veiled walk, And water once a day her chamber round With eye-offending brine: all this, to season© A brother's dead love, which she would keep fresh And lasting, in her sad remembrance. DUKE. O, she that hath a heart of that fine frame, To pay this debt of love but to a brother, How will she love, when the rich golden shaft ª a Capell calls the matter of the line which we have printed in parentheses "extraneous." Of this we are not sure. The Duke complains that when he first saw Olivia he was " turn'd into a hart;" but he had thought, mistakingly, that she "purg'd the air of pestilence"-removed those malignant influences from the air which caused his transformation. In this sense "pestilence has the same meaning as the "taking airs" of ' Lear.' Whether this be the sense or not, the line is decidedly parenthetical. b Heat-heated. Season. This metaphor is repeated several times by our poet: the brine seasons, preserves, a brother's dead love fresh. So in 'Romeo and Juliet:' "Jesu Maria! what a deal of brine Hath wash'd thy sallow cheeks for Rosaline! How much salt water thrown away in waste To season love.” a The rich golden shaft. The Cupid of the ancient mythology was armed (as Sydney no- tices) with "But arrows two, and tipp'd with gold or lead." The opposite effects of these weapons are described in Ovid ('Metamorph.'), and Shakspere might have read the passage in Golding's translation:- “That causeth love is all of gold with point full sharp and bright: That chaseth love is blunt, whose steel with leaden head is dight." SCENE II.] 263 TWELFTH NIGHT. Hath kill'd the flock of all affections else That live in her! when liver, brain, and heart, Those sovereign thrones, are all supplied, and fill'd, (Her sweet perfections a) with one self king!- Away before me to sweet beds of flowers; Love-thoughts lie rich, when canopied with bowers. [Exeunt. SCENE II.—The Sea-coast. Enter VIOLA, Captain, and Sailors. VIO. What country, friends, is this? CAP. This is Illyria, lady©. VIO. And what should I do in Illyria? My brother he is in Elysium. sailors? Perchance he is not drown'd:-What think you, CAP. It is perchance that you yourself were sav'd. VIO. O my poor brother! and so, perchance, may he be. CAP. True, madam; and, to comfort you with chance, VIO. Assure yourself, after our ship did split, When you, and those poor numberd sav'd with you, Hung on our driving boat, I saw your brother, Most provident in peril, bind himself (Courage and hope both teaching him the practice) To a strong mast, that liv'd upon the sea Where, like Arion on the dolphin's back, I saw him hold acquaintance with the waves, So long as I could see. For saying so, there's gold: Mine own escape unfoldeth to my hope, Whereto thy speech serves for authority, The like of him. Know'st thou this country? CAP. Ay, madam, well; for I was bred and born, Not three hours' travel from this very place. a Her sweet perfections. Steevens thus explains this passage: "Liver, brain, and heart, are admitted in poetry as the residence of passions, judgment, and sentiments. These are what Shak- spere calls her sweet perfections." The phrase ought probably to be "her sweet perfection." The filling of the "sovereign thrones" with "one self king" is the perfection of Olivia's merits,— according to the ancient doctrine that a woman was not complete till her union with a "self king." b Steevens adopts this, because in his Malone, who rejects it, maintains, Self king. So the first folio; the second, self-same king. notion the metre is improved by the introduction of same; however, that self-king means self-same king. We doubt this; believing that the poet meant king of herself. • This is Illyria, lady. So the original. We ordinarily find the text without this is. d & Those poor number. So the original. The ordinary reading is that poor number. 264 [ACT I. TWELFTH NIGHT. VIO. Who governs here? CAP. A noble duke, in nature as in name. VIO. What is his name? CAP. Orsino. VIO. Orsino! I have heard my father name him : He was a bachelor then. CAP. And so is now, or was so very late: For but a month ago I went from hence; And then 't was fresh in murmur, (as, you know, What great ones do, the less will prattle of,) That he did seek the love of fair Olivia. VIO. What's she? CAP. A virtuous maid, the daughter of a count VIO. CAP. That died some twelvemonth since; then leaving her In the protection of his son, her brother, Who shortly also died: for whose dear love, They say, she hath abjur'd the sight And company of menª. O, that I serv'd that lady: And might not be deliver'd to the world, Till I had made mine own occasion mellow What my estate is. That were hard to compass; Because she will admit no kind of suit, No, not the duke's. VIO. There is a fair behaviour in thee, captain; And though that nature with a beauteous wall Doth oft close in pollution, yet of thee I will believe thou hast a mind that suits With this thy fair and outward character. I prithee, and I'll pay thee bounteously, Conceal me what I am; and be my aid For such disguise as, haply, shall become. The form of my intent. I'll serve this duke; Thou shalt present me as an eunuch to him, It may be worth thy pains; for I can sing, And speak to him in many sorts of music, That will allow me very worth his service. What else may hap, to time I will commit; Only shape thou thy silence to my wit. CAP. Be you his eunuch, and your mute I 'll be ; When my tongue blabs, then let mine eyes not see! VIO. I thank thee: Lead me on. [Exeunt. a The words sight and company are transposed by modern editors, after Hanmer. SCENE III.] 265 TWELFTH NIGHT. SCENE III.-A Room in Olivia's House. Enter Sir TOBY BELCH and MARIA. SIR TO. What a plague means my niece, to take the death of her brother thus ? I am sure care 's an enemy to life. MAR. By my troth, sir Toby, you must come in earlier o'nights; your cousin, my lady, takes great exceptions to your ill hours. SIR TO. Why, let her except before excepted. MAR. Ay, but you must confine yourself within the modest limits of order. SIR TO. Confine? I'll confine myself no finer than I am: these clothes are good enough to drink in, and so be these boots too; an they be not, let them hang themselves in their own straps. MAR. That quaffing and drinking will undo you: I heard my lady talk of it yesterday; and of a foolish knight, that you brought in one night here, to be her wooer. SIR TO. Who? Sir Andrew Ague-cheek? MAR. Ay, he. SIR TO. He's as talla a man as any 's in Illyria. MAR. What's that to the purpose? SIR TO. Why, he has three thousand ducats a year. MAR. Ay, but he 'll have but a year in all these ducats; he's a very fool, and a prodigal. SIR TO. Fie, that you'll say so! he plays o' the viol-de-gamboys, and speaks three or four languages word for word without book, and hath all the good gifts of nature. MAR. He hath, indeed, almost natural: for besides that he's a fool, he's a great quarreller; and but that he hath the gift of a coward to allay the gust he hath in quarrelling, 't is thought among the prudent he would quickly have the gift of a grave. SIR TO. By this hand, they are scoundrels and subtractors that say so of him. Who are they? MAR. They that add, moreover, he 's drunk nightly in your company. SIR TO. With drinking healths to my niece: I'll drink to her as long as there is a passage in my throat, and drink in Illyria. He's a coward and a coystril, that will not drink to my niece till his brains turn o' the toe like a parish-top. What, wench? Castiliano-vulgo b; for here comes sir Andrew Ague-face. Enter Sir ANDREW AGUE-CHEEK. SIR AND. Sir Toby Belch! how now, sir Toby Belch! SIR TO. Sweet sir Andrew! a Tall-stout—bold. b ↳ Warburton refines upon this phrase of the knight, and would read Castiliano volto—“ put on your Castilian countenance; that is, your grave, solemn looks." 266 [ACT I. TWELFTH NIGHT. SIR AND. Bless you, fair shrew. MAR. And you too, sir. SIR TO. Accost, sir Andrew, accost. SIR AND. What 's that? SIR TO. My niece's chambermaid. SIR AND. Good mistress Accost, I desire better acquaintance. MAR. My name is Mary, sir. SIR AND. Good mistress Mary Accost,- SIR TO. You mistake, knight; accost is, front her, board her, woo her, assail her. SIR AND. By my troth, I would not undertake her in this company. Is that the meaning of accost? MAR. Fare you well, gentlemen. SIR TO. An thou let part so, sir Andrew, 'would thou mightst never draw sword again. SIR AND. An you part so, mistress, I would I might never draw sword again. Fair lady, do you think you have fools in hand? MAR. Sir, I have not you by the hand. SIR AND. Marry, but you shall have; and here's my hand. MAR. Now, sir, thought is free: I pray you, bring your hand to the buttery-bar, and let it drink. SIR AND. Wherefore, sweetheart? what's your metaphor? MAR. It's dry, sir. SIR AND. Why, I think so; I am not such an ass but I can keep my hand dry. But what's your jest? MAR. A dry jest, sir. SIR AND. Are you full of them ? MAR. Ay, sir; I have them at my finger's ends: marry, now I let go your hand I am barren. [Exit MARIA. SIR TO. O knight, thou lack'st a cup of canary: When did I see thee so put down? SIR AND. Never in your life, I think; unless you see canary put me down: Methinks sometimes I have no more wit than a Christian, or an ordinary man has: but I am a great eater of beef, and I believe that does harm to my wit. SIR TO. No question. SIR AND. An I thought that, I'd forswear it. I'll ride home to-morrow, sir Toby. SIR TO. Pourquoy, my dear knight? SIR AND. What is pourquoy? do or not do? I would I had bestowed that time in the tongues that I have in fencing, dancing, and bear-baiting: O, had I but followed the arts! SIR TO. Then hadst thou had an excellent head of hair. a Board her—address her. SCENE II.] 267 TWELFTH NIGHT. SIR AND. Why, would that have mended my hair? SIR TO. Past question; for thou seest it will not curl by nature a. SIR AND. But it becomes me well enough, does 't not? SIR TO. Excellent; it hangs like flax on a distaff; and I hope to see a house- wife take thee between her legs, and spin it off. SIR AND. 'Faith, I'll home to-morrow, sir Toby; your niece will not be seen ; or, if she be, it's four to one she'll none of me: the count himself, here hard by, woos her. SIR TO. She'll none o' the count; she'll not match above her degree, neither in estate, years, nor wit; I have heard her swear it. Tut, there's life in 't, man. SIR AND. I'll stay a month longer. I am a fellow o' the strangest mind i' the world; I delight in masques and revels sometimes altogether. SIR TO. Art thou good at these kickshaws, knight? SIR AND. As any man in Illyria, whatsoever he be, under the degree of my betters; and yet I will not compare with an old man. SIR TO. What is thy excellence in a galliard, knight? SIR AND. 'Faith, I can cut a caper. SIR TO. And I can cut the mutton to 't. SIR AND. And, I think, I have the back-trick, simply as strong as any man in Illyria. SIR TO. Wherefore are these things hid? wherefore have these gifts a curtain before them? are they like to take dust, like mistress Mall's picture"? why dost thou not go to church in a galliard, and come home in a coranto? My very walk should be a jig; I would not so much as make water but in a sink-a-pace. What dost thou mean? is it a world to hide virtues in? I did think, by the excellent constitution of thy leg it was formed under the star of a galliard. SIR AND. Ay, 't is strong, and it does indifferent well in a damask-coloured stock b. Shall we set about some revels? SIR TO. What shall we do else? were we not born under Taurus ? SIR AND. Taurus? that 's sides and heart. SIR TO. No, sir; it is legs and thighs. Let me see thee caper: ha! higher: ha, ha!-excellent! [Exeunt. a Curl by nature. This is a very happy correction by Theobald. The original reads, cool my nature. b Damask-coloured stock. Stock is stocking. In the original we find dam'd coloured. Pope changed this to flame-coloured. We have ventured to read damask-coloured; for it is evident that, if the word damask were written as pronounced rapidly, dam'sk, it might easily be mis- printed dam'd. In Drayton we have "the damask-coloured dove." The name of the colour is derived from the damask rose. 268 [AGT 1. TWELFTH NIGHT. SCENE IV-A Room in the Duke's Palace. Enter VALENTINE, and VIOLA in man's attire. VAL. If the duke continue these favours towards you, Cesario, you are like to be much advanced; he hath known you but three days, and already you are no stranger. VIO. You either fear his humour, or my negligence, that you call in question the continuance of his love: Is he inconstant, sir, in his favours?` VAL. No, believe me. Enter DUKE, CURIO, and Attendants. VIO. I thank you. Here comes the count. DUKE. Who saw Cesario, ho? Vio. On your attendance, my lord; here. DUKE. Stand you awhile aloof. awhile aloof.Cesario, Vio. Thou know'st no less but all; I have unclasp'd To thee the book even of my secret soul: Therefore, good youth, address thy gait unto her; Be not denied access, stand at her doors, And tell them, there thy fixed foot shall grow, Till thou have audience. Sure, my noble lord, If she be so abandon'd to her sorrow As it is spoke, she never will admit me. DUKE. Be clamorous, and leap all civil bounds, Rather than make unprofited return. VIO. Say, I do speak with her, my lord; what then? DUKE O, then unfold the passion of my love; Surprise her with discourse of my dear faith: It shall become thee well to act my woes ; She will attend it better in thy youth, Than in a nuncio of more grave aspect. Vro. I think not so, my lord. DUKE. Dear lad, believe it; For they shall yet belie thy happy years That say, thou art a man: Diana's lip Is not more smooth and rubious; thy small pipe Is as the maiden's organ, shrill and sound, And all is semblative a woman's part. I know thy constellation is right apt For this affair :-Some four, or five, attend him ; All, if you will; for I myself am best When least in company :-Prosper well in this, SCENE V.] 269 TWELFTH NIGHT. VIO. And thou shalt live as freely as thy lord, To call his fortunes thine. I'll do my best To woo your lady: yet [aside], a barful strife! Whoe'er I woo, myself would be his wife. SCENE V.—A Room in Olivia's House. Enter MARIA and Clown. [Exeunt. MAR. Nay, either tell me where thou hast been, or I will not open my lips so wide as a bristle may enter, in way of thy excuse: my lady will hang thee for thy absence. CLO. Let her hang me: he that is well hanged in this world needs to fear no colours a MAR. Make that good. CLO. He shall see none to fear. MAR. A good lenten answer: I can tell thee where that saying was born, of, I fear no colours. CLO. Where, good mistress Mary? MAR. In the wars; and that may you be bold to say in your foolery. CLO. Well, God give them wisdom that have it; and those that are fools let them use their talents. MAR. Yet you will be hanged, for being so long absent; or, to be turned away: is not that as good as a hanging to you? CLO. Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage; and, for turning away, let summer bear it out b. MAR. You are resolute, then? CLO. Not so, neither; but I am resolved on two points. MAR. That if one break the other will hold; or, if both break, your gaskins fall c. CLO. Apt, in good faith; very apt! Well, go thy way; if sir Toby would leave drinking, thou wert as witty a piece of Eve's flesh as any in Illyria. MAR. Peace, you rogue, no more o' that; here comes my lady: make your excuse wisely, you were best. [Exit. Enter OLIVIA and MALVOLIO. CLO. Wit, and 't be thy will, put me into good fooling! Those wits that think they have thee do very oft prove fools; and I, that am sure I lack thee, may & Fear no colours. Maria explains the saying in one way-it was born in the wars,-referring to the colours of an enemy. It probably meant, I fear no deceptions. Holofernes says, “I do fear colourable colours." ('Love's Labour 's Lost,' Act IV., Scene 2.) b One Doctor Letherland proposed to read, "for turning of whey." This is an amusing speci- men f conjectural criticism. • Our readers will remember," their points being broken, down fell their hose." ('Henry IV., Part I.') 270 [ACT 1. TWELFTH NIGHT. pass for a wise man: For what says Quinapalus? Better a witty fool, than a foolish wit.-God bless thee, lady! OLI. Take the fool away. CLO. Do you not hear, fellows? Take away the lady. OLI. Go to, you 're a dry fool; honest. CLO. Two faults, madonna, that drink and good counsel will amend: for give the dry fool drink,—then is the fool not dry; bid the dishonest man mend himself,—if he mend, he is no longer dishonest; if he cannot, let the botcher mend him: Anything that 's mended is but patched : virtue that transgresses is but patched with sin; and sin that amends is but patched with virtue: If that this simple syllogism will serve, so; if it will not, What remedy? As there is no true cuckold but calamity, so beauty 's a flower:—the lady bade take away the fool; therefore, I say again, take her away. I'll no more of you: besides, you grow dis- OLI. Sir, I bade them take away you. CLO. Misprision in the highest degree!-Lady, Cucullus non facit monachum ; that's as much to say as, I wear not motley in my brain. give me leave to prove you a fool. OLI. Can you do it? CLO. Dexterously, good madonna. OLI. Make your proof. Good madonna, CLO. I must catechise you for it, madonna: Good my mouse of virtue, answer me. OLI. Well, sir, for want of other idleness, I'll 'bide your proof. CLO. Good madonna, why mourn'st thou? OLI. Good fool, for my brother's death. CLO. I think his soul is in hell, madonna. OLI. I know his soul is in heaven, fool. CLO. The more fool, madonna, to mourn for your brother's soul being in heaven. -Take away the fool, gentlemen. OLI. What think you of this fool, Malvolio? doth he not mend ? MAL. Yes; and shall do, till the pangs of death shake him: Infirmity, that decays the wise, doth ever make the better fool. CLO. God send you, sir, a speedy infirmity, for the better increasing your folly! Sir Toby will be sworn that I am no fox; but he will not pass his word for twopence that you are no fool. OLI. How say you to that, Malvolio? MAL. I marvel your ladyship takes delight in such a barren rascal: I saw him put down the other day with an ordinary fool that has no more brain than a stone. Look you now, he's out of his guard already; unless you laugh and minister occasion to him, he is gagged. I protest I take these wise men, that crow so at these set kind of fools, no better than the fools' zanies. OLI. O, you are sick of self-love, Malvolio, and taste with a distempered appetite. To be generous, guiltless, and of free disposition, is to take those things for bird-bolts that you deem cannon-bullets: There is no slander in an allowed SCENE V.] 271 TWELFTH NIGHT. fool, though he do nothing but rail; nor no railing in a known discreet man, though he do nothing but reprove. CLO. Now Mercury endue thee with leasing a, for thou speakest well of fools! Re-enter MARIA. MAR. Madam, there is at the gate a young gentleman much desires to speak with you. OLI. From the count Orsino, is it? MAR. I know not, madam; 't is a fair young man, and well attended. OLI. Who of my people hold him in delay? MAR. Sir Toby, madam, your kinsman. OLI. Fetch him off, I pray you; he speaks nothing but madman: Fie on him! [Exit MARIA.] Go you, Malvolio: if it be a suit from the count, I am sick, or not at home; what you will, to dismiss it. [Exit MALVOLIO.] Now you see, sir, how your fooling grows old, and people dislike it. CLO. Thou hast spoke for us, madonna, as if thy eldest son should be a fool; whose skull Jove cram with brains! for here he comes, one of thy kin, has a most weak pia mater. Enter Sir TOBY BELCH. OLI. By mine honour, half drunk.-What is he at the gate, cousin? SIR TO. A gentleman. OLI. A gentleman! what gentleman ? SIR TO. 'T is a gentleman here-A plague of these pickle-herrings !—How now, sot? CLO. Good sir Toby,- OLI. Cousin, cousin, how have you come so early by this lethargy? SIR TO. Lechery! I defy lechery: There's one at the gate. OLI. Ay, marry; what is he? SIR TO. Let him be the devil, an he will, I care not give me faith, say I. Well, it's all one. OLI. What's a drunken man like, fool? [Exit. CLO. Like a drowned man, a fool, and a madman: one draught above heat makes him a fool; the second mads him; and a third drowns him. OLI. Go thou and seek the crowner, and let him sit o' my coz; for he 's in the third degree of drink, he 's drowned: go, look after him. CLO. He is but mad yet, madonna; and the fool shall look to the madman. Re-enter MALVOLIO. [Exit Clown. MAL. Madam, yond' young fellow swears he will speak with you. I told him you were sick; he takes on him to understand so much, and therefore comes to speak with you: I told him you were asleep; he seems to have a foreknow- a Leasing-falsehood. Johnson interprets the passage," May Mercury teach thee to lie, since thou liest in favour of fools." Is it not rather, since thou speakest the truth of fools (which not profitable), may Mercury give thee the advantageous gift of lying. 272 [ACT I. TWELFTH NIGHT. ledge of that too, and therefore comes to speak with you. What is to be said to him, lady? he 's fortified against any denial. OLI. Tell him he shall not speak with me. MAL. He has been told so; and he says, he 'll stand at your door like a sheriff's post, and be the supporter of a bench, but he 'll speak with you. OLI. What kind of man is he? MAL. Why, of mankind. OLI. What manner of man? MAL. Of very ill manner; he 'll speak with you, will you, or no. OLI. Of what personage, and years, is he? MAL. Not yet old enough for a man, nor young enough for a boy; as a squash is before 't is a peascod, or a codling when 't is almost an apple: 't is with him in standing water, between boy and man. He is very well favoured, and he speaks very shrewishly; one would think his mother's milk were scarce out of him. OLI. Let him approach: Call in my gentlewoman. MAL. Gentlewoman, my lady calls. Re-enter MARIA. OLI. Give me my veil: come, throw it o'er my face. We'll once more hear Orsino's embassy. Enter VIOLA. [Exit. Vio. The honourable lady of the house, which is she? OLI. Speak to me, I shall answer for her: Your will? VIO. Most radiant, exquisite, and unmatchable beauty, I pray you tell me if this be the lady of the house, for I never saw her: I would be loth to cast away my speech; for, besides that it is excellently well penned, I have taken great pains to con it. Good beauties, let me sustain no scorn; I am very comptible ª, even to the least sinister usage. a OLI. Whence came you, sir? VIO. I can say little more than I have studied, and that question 's out of my part. Good gentle one, give me modest assurance if you be the lady of the house, that I may proceed in my speech. OLI. Are you a comedian? Vio. No, my profound heart; and yet, by the very fangs of malice I swear I am not that I play. Are you the lady of the house? OLI. If I do not usurp myself, I am. Vio. Most certain, if you are she, you do usurp yourself; for what is yours to bestow is not yours to reserve. But this is from my commission: I will on with my speech in your praise, and then show you the heart of my message. OLI. Come to what is important in 't: I forgive you the praise. VIO. Alas, I took great pains to study it, and 't is poetical. a Comptible--accountable—ready to submit. SCENE V.] 273 TWELFTH NIGHT. OLI. It is the more like to be feigned; I pray you, keep it in. I heard you were saucy at my gates; and allowed your approach, rather to wonder at you than to hear you. If you be not madª, If you be not madª, be gone; if you have reason, be time of moon with me to make one in so skipping a brief: 't is not that dialogue. MAR. Will you hoist sail, sir? here lies your way. VIO. No, good swabber; I am to hull here a little longer. Some mollification for your giant, sweet lady. OLI. Tell me your mind. VIO. I am a messenger. OLI. Sure, you have some hideous matter to deliver, when the courtesy of it is so fearful. Speak your office. Vio. It alone concerns your ear. I bring no overture of war, no taxation of homage; I hold the olive in my hand: my words are as full of peace as matter. OLI. Yet you began rudely. What are you? what would you? Vio. The rudeness that hath appeared in me, have I learned from my entertain- ment. What I am, and what I would, are as secret as maidenhead: to your ears, divinity; to any other's, profanation. OLI. Give us the place alone: we will hear this divinity. [Exit MARIA.] Now, sir, what is your text? Vio. Most sweet lady,— OLI. A comfortable doctrine, and much may be said of it. Where lies your text? VIO. In Orsino's bosom. OLI. In his bosom? In what chapter of his bosom? VIO. To answer by the method, in the first of his heart. OLI. O, I have read it; it is heresy. Have you no more to say? VIO. Good madam, let me see your face. OLI. Have you any commission from your lord to negociate with my face? you are now out of your text: but we will draw the curtain, and show you the picture. [Unveiling.] Look you, sir, such a one I was this present: Is 't not well done? Vio. Excellently done, if God did all. OLI. 'Tis in grain, sir; 't will endure wind and weather. VIO. 'Tis beauty truly blent, whose red and white Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on : Lady, you are the cruell'st she alive, a Some would read, "if you be mad.” This forms part of Viola's speech, in the original; where "tell me your mind, I am a mes- senger," runs on, after "sweet lady." C This text appears clear enough. Olivia says, "We will draw the curtain, and show you the picture." She then unveils her face for an instant only; and adds, "Look you, sir, such a one I was this present," such I was this moment. The text has been confused by a slight change which has been overlooked; for we find in all the modern editions, "such a one as I was this present." COMEDIES.-VOL. II. T 274 [ACT I. TWELFTH NIGHT. If you will lead these graces to the grave, And leave the world no copy. OLI. O, sir, I will not be so hard-hearted; I will give out divers schedules of my beauty It shall be inventoried; and every particle, and utensil, labelled to my will: as, item, two lips indifferent red; item, two gray eyes, with lids to them; item, one neck, one chin, and so forth. Were you sent hither to praise mea? Vio. I see you what you are: you are too proud; OLI. But, if you were the devil, you are fair. My lord and master loves you; O, such love Could be but recompens'd, though you were crown'd The nonpareil of beauty! How does he love me? V10. With adorations, fertile tears, With groans that thunder love, with sighs of fire. OLI. Your lord does know my mind, I cannot love him: Yet I suppose him virtuous, know him noble, Of great estate, of fresh and stainless youth; In voices well divulg'd, free, learn'd, and valiant, And in dimension, and the shape of nature, A gracious person; but yet I cannot love him ; He might have took his answer long ago. VIO. If I did love you in my master's flame, With such a suffering, such a deadly life, In your denial I would find no sense, I would not understand it. OLI. Why, what would you? VIO. Make me a willow cabin at your gate, And call upon my soul within the house; C Write loyal cantons of contemned love, And sing them loud even in the dead of night; Holla your name to the reverberate hills, And make the babbling gossip of the air Cry out, Olivia! O, you should not rest Between the elements of air and earth, But you should pity me. OLI. You might do much : What is your parentage? Vio. Above my fortunes, yet my state is well: OLI. I am a gentleman. Get you to your lord; a Praise me. Malone has ingeniously conjectured that praise is here a contraction for appraise. But the word used in Shakspere's time was apprise-to fix a price; and moreover, Olivia herself introduced the talk about schedules and inventories. We believe, therefore, that we must receive praise in its ordinary acceptation. ↳ Fertile tears. So the original. Pope reads, "with fertile tears." Cantons-cantos. SCENE V.] 275 TWELFTH NIGHT. I cannot love him: let him send no more; Unless, perchance, you come to me again, To tell me how he takes it. I thank you for your pains: Fare you well: spend this for me. Vio. I am no fee'd post, lady; keep your purse; My master, not myself, lacks recompense. Love make his heart of flint, that you shall love; And let your fervour, like my master's, be Plac'd in contempt! Farewell, fair cruelty. OLI. What is your parentage ? "Above my fortunes, yet my state is well: I am a gentleman."—I 'll be sworn thou art; Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions, and spirit, Do give thee five-fold blazon :-Not too fast:-soft! soft! Unless the master were the man.-How now? Even so quickly may one catch the plague? Methinks, I feel this youth's perfections, With an invisible and subtle stealth, To creep in at mine eyes. What, ho, Malvolio !— Well, let it be.— Re-enter MALvolio. [Exit. MAL. Here, madam, at your service. OLI. Run after that same peevish messenger, The county's man: he left this ring behind him, Would I, or not; tell him, I 'll none of it. Desire him not to flatter with his lord, Nor hold him up with hopes; I am not for him : If that the youth will come this way to-morrow, I'll give him reasons for 't. Hie thee, Malvolio. MAL. Madam, I will. OLI. I do I know not what: and fear to find Mine eye too great a flatterer for my mind. Fate, show thy force: Ourselves we do not owea; What is decreed must be; and be this so! a We do not own, possess, ourselves. [Exit. [Exit. T 2 CC SARGENT [Scene I.] ACT II W TORREN Sr. SCENE I.-The Sea-coast. Enter ANTONIO and SEBASTIAN. with you? ANT. Will you stay no longer? nor will you not that I go SEB. By your patience, no: my stars shine darkly over me; the malignancy of my fate might, perhaps, distemper yours; therefore I shall crave of you your leave that I may bear my evils alone: It were a bad recompense for your love to lay any of them on you. ANT. Let me yet know of you whither you are bound. SEB. No, 'sooth, sir; my determinate voyage is mere extravagancy. But I perceive in you so excellent a touch of modesty, that you will not extort from me what I am willing to keep in; therefore it charges me in manners the rather to express myself. You must know of me then, Antonio, my name is Sebastian, which I called Rodorigo; my father was that Sebastian а a Express-make known. SCENE 11.] 277 TWELFTH NIGHT. of Messalinea, whom I know you have heard of: he left behind him, myself and a sister, both born in an hour. If the heavens had been pleased, 'would we had so ended! but you, sir, altered that; for some hour before you took me from the breach of the sea was my sister drowned. ANT. Alas, the day! SEB. A lady, sir, though it was said she much resembled me, was yet of many accounted beautiful: but, though I could not, with such estimable wonder, overfar believe that, yet thus far I will boldly publish her,—she bore a mind that envy could not but call fair: she is drowned already, sir, with salt water, though I seem to drown her remembrance again with more. ANT. Pardon me, sir, your bad entertainment. SEB. O, good Antonio, forgive me your trouble. ANT. If you will not murther me for my love, let me be your servant⁹. SEB. If you will not undo what you have done, that is, kill him whom you have recovered, desire it not. Fare ye well at once: my bosom is full of kind- ness; and I am yet so near the manners of my mother, that upon the least occasion more, mine eyes will tell tales of me. I am bound to the count Orsino's court: farewell. ANT. The gentleness of all the gods go with thee! I have many enemies in Orsino's court, Else would I very shortly see thee there: But, come what may, I do adore thee so, [Exit. That danger shall seem sport, and I will go. [Exit. SCENE II.-A Street. Enter VIOLA; MALVOLIO following. MAL. Were not you even now with the countess Olivia? VIO. Even now, sir; on a moderate pace I have since arrived but hither. MAL. She returns this ring to you, sir; you might have saved me my pains, to have taken it away yourself. She adds, moreover, that you should put your lord into a desperate assurance she will none of him: And one thing more; that you be never so hardy to come again in his affairs, unless it be to report your lord's taking of this. Receive it so. VIO. She took the ring of me. I'll none of it. MAL. Come, sir, you peevishly threw it to her; and her will is it should be so returned: if it be worth stooping for, there it lies in your eye; if not, be it his that finds it. a Messaline. Mitylene (Lesbos) is most probably meant. [Exit. ↳ She took the ring of me. Viola has been blamed for this assertion. She would screen Olivia from the suspicions of her own servant. The lady has said that the ring was left with her; and Viola has too strong a respect for her own sex to proclaim the truth. She makes up her mind during Malvolio's speech to refuse the ring; but not to expose the cause of her refusal. 278 [ACT II. TWELFTH NIGHT. VIO. I left no ring with her: What means this lady? Fortune forbid, my outside have not charm'd her! She made good view of me; indeed, so much That, methought, her eyes had lost her tongue, For she did speak in starts distractedly. b She loves me, sure; the cunning of her passion Invites me in this churlish messenger. None of my lord's ring! why, he sent her none. I am the man :-If it be so, (as 't is,) Poor lady, she were better love a dream. Disguise, I see thou art a wickedness, Wherein the pregnant enemy does much. How easy is it for the proper-false с In women's waxen hearts to set their forms! Alas, our frailty is the cause, not we; For, such as we are made, if such we bed. How will this fadge? My master loves her dearly: And I, poor monster, fond as much on him; And she, mistaken, seems to dote on me: What will become of this? As I am man, My state is desperate for my master's love! As I am woman, now alas the day! What thriftless sighs shall poor Olivia breathe! O time, thou must untangle this, not I; It is too hard a knot for me t' untie. [Exit. a That, methought. So the first folio. In the second folio, which is commonly followed, we find-" That, sure, methought." • Lost-caused her tongue to be lost. • Proper-false. Proper is here handsome, as in 'Othello,'— "This Lodovico is a proper man." This adjective is compounded with false, in the same way that we subsequently have beauteous- evil. * This is printed in all modern editions, according to a conjecture of Tyrwhitt's, "For, such as we are made of, such we be." (L Both the first and second folios are clear in the reading which we give; and in this case a typo- graphical error in the preceding line is corrected in the second folio, which has our frailty” in- stead of "0, frailty." If Viola meant to say—we be such as we are made-the particle of is surplusage. But we think she does not mean this. She would say, "Our frailty is the cause, not we ourselves, that the proper-false deceive us; because such as we are made frail if we be frail.” The poet did not mean the reasoning to be very conclusive. Fadge-to suit-to agree-from the Anglo-Saxon fegan, to join. Drayton has, "With flattery my muse could never fadge." SCENE III.] 279 TWELFTH NIGHT. SCENE III.—A Room in Olivia's House. Enter Sir TOBY BELCH and Sir ANDREW AGUE-CHEEK. SIR TO. Approach, sir Andrew: not to be a-bed after midnight is to be up betimes; and diluculo surgere, thou know'st,- SIR AND. Nay, by my troth, I know not: but I know, to be up late is to be up late. SIR TO. A false conclusion; I hate it as an unfilled can: To be up after mid- night, and to go to bed then, is early: so that, to go to bed after midnight is to go to bed betimes. Do not our lives consist of the four elements? SIR AND. 'Faith, so they say; but, I think, it rather consists of eating and drinking. SIR TO. Thou 'rt a scholar; let us therefore eat and drink.-Marian, I say! a stoop of wine! Enter Clown. SIR AND. Here comes the fool, i' faith. CLO. How now, my hearts? Did you never see the picture of we three ¹º? SIR TO. Welcome, ass. Now let's have a catch. SIR AND. By my troth, the fool has an excellent breast. I had rather than forty shillings I had such a leg; and so sweet a breath to sing, as the fool has. In sooth, thou wast in very gracious fooling last night, when thou spokest of Pigrogromitus, of the Vapians passing the equinoctial of Queubus; 't was very good, i' faith. I sent thee sixpence for thy leman: Hadst it? CLO. I did impeticos thy gratillity; for Malvolio's nose is no whipstock: My lady has a white hand, and the Myrmidons are no bottle-ale houses. SIR AND. Excellent! Why, this is the best fooling, when all is done. Now, a song. SIR TO. Come on; there is sixpence for you: let's have a song. SIR AND. There's a testril of me too; if one knight give a a Excellent breast-excellent voice. Warton has given several examples of this meaning of breast;-amongst others, Tusser, the author of 'The Husbandry,' who was a chorister at Win- chester, says- b Thence, for my voice, I must (no choice) Away, of force, like posting horse. For sundry men had placards then Such child to take; The better breast, the lesser rest, To serve the quire now there, now here." Impeticos thy gratillity. This is evidently a touch of the fantastic language which the Clown continually uses. Johnson would read-" I did impetticoat thy gratuity." No doubt we under- stand it so. But then comes a grave discussion amongst the commentators whether the Clown put the sixpence in his own petticoat or gave it to his leman. Dr. Johnson says, with great candour and wisdom,-" There is much in this dialogue which I do not understand;"-and we are content to plead his sanction in not entering upon this recondite question of the petticoat; in leaving unexplained the still more abstruse histories of "Pigrogromitus" and "the Vapians;" and in giving up the riddle why "the Myrmidons are no bottle-ale houses." 280 [ACT II. TWELFTH NIGHT. CLO. Would you have a long-song, or a song of good life? SIR TO. A love-song, a love-song. SIR AND. Ay, ay; I care not for good life. CLO. SONG. O mistress mine, where are you roaming? O, stay and hear; your true love 's coming, That can sing both high and low : Trip no further, pretty sweeting; Journeys end in lovers' meeting, Every wise man's son doth know. SIR AND. Excellent good, i' faith. SIR TO. Good, good. CLO. What is love? 't is not hereafter; Present mirth hath present laughter; What 's to come is still unsure: In delay there lies no plenty ; Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty, Youth's a stuff will not endure. SIR AND. A mellifluous voice, as I am true knight. SIR TO. A contagious breath. SIR AND. Very sweet and contagious, i' faith. SIR TO. To hear by the nose, it is dulcet in contagion. But shall we make the welkin dance indeed? Shall we rouse the night-owl in a catch, that will draw three souls out of one weaver? shall we do that? SIR AND. An you love me, let's do 't: I am dog at a catch. CLO. By 'r lady, sir, and some dogs will catch well. SIR AND. Most certain let our catch be, "Thou knave."11 CLO. " Hold thy peace, thou knave," knight? I shall be constrained in 't to call thee knave, knight. SIR AND. 'T is not the first time I have constrained one to call me knave. Begin, fool; it begins, "Hold thy peace." CLO. I shall never begin, if I hold my peace. SIR AND. Good, i' faith! Come, begin. [They sing a catch. Enter MARIA. MAR. What a caterwauling do you keep here! If my lady have not called up her steward, Malvolio, and bid him turn you out of doors, never trust me. SIR TO. My lady's a Cataian, we are politicians; Malvolio 's a Peg-a-Ramsay, and "Three merry men be we." 12 Am not I consanguineous? am I not of her blood? Tilly-valley! lady! "There dwelt a man in Babylon, lady, lady! [Singing. "13 "12 CLO. Beshrew me, the knight's in admirable fooling. SIR AND. Ay, he does well enough, if he be disposed, and so do I too; he does it with a better grace, but I do it more natural. SCENE III. 281 TWELFTH NIGHT. [Singing. SIR TO. " O, the twelfth day of December.". MAR. For the love o' God, peace. Enter MALVOLIO. MAL. My masters, are you mad? or what are you? Have you no wit, manners, nor honesty, but to gabble like tinkers at this time of night? Do you make an alehouse of my lady's house, that ye squeak out your coziers' catches a without any mitigation or remorse of voice? Is there no respect of place, persons, nor time, in you? SIR TO. We did keep time, sir, in our catches. Sneck up! MAL. Sir Toby, I must be round with you. My lady bade me tell you, that, though she harbours you as her kinsman, she 's nothing allied to your disorders. If you can separate yourself and your misdemeanors, you are welcome to the house; if not, an it would please you to take leave of her, she is very willing to bid you farewell. SIR TO. "Farewell, dear heart, since I must needs be gone."¹4 MAR. Nay, good sir Toby. CLO. "His eyes do show his days are almost done." MAL. Is 't even so? SIR TO." But I will never die." CLO. Sir Toby, there you lie. MAL. This is much credit to you. SIR TO. Shall I bid him go?" CLO. " What an if you do?" SIR TO. “Shall I bid him go, and spare not?" CLO. “O no, no, no, no, you dare not.” SIR TO. Out o' time? sir, ye lie.-Art any more than a steward? Dost thou think because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale 15? CLO. Yes, by Saint Anne: and ginger shall be hot i' the mouth too. SIR TO. Thou 'rt ï' the right.— Go, sir, rub your chain with crumbs ª:—A stoop of wine, Maria ! MAL. Mistress Mary, if you prized my lady's favour at anything more than con- a Coziers' catches. A cozier is a botcher-whether a tailor or a cobbler is not material. b ↳ Sneck up. A passage in Taylor, the Water Poet, would show that this phrase means-hang yourself. He says, in his 'Praise of Hempseed'- "A Tyburn hempen caudle will e'en cure you: It can cure traitors, but I hold it fit T' apply 't ere they the treason do commit: Wherefore in Sparta it ycleped was Snickup, which is in English gallowgrass." • Sir Toby comes back to his former assertion-" We did keep time, sir." The old copies read "out o' tune." The correction was made by Theobald. • The steward's office of authority was denoted by a chain. Steevens tells us the best way of cleaning any gilt plate is by rubbing it with crumbs." Our ancestors at least thought so, for Webster, in The Duchess of Malfy,' has "the chippings of the buttery fly after him, to scour his gold chain." 282 [ACT II. TWELFTH NIGHT. tempt, you would not give means for this uncivil rule a; she shall know of it, by this hand. MAR. Go shake your ears. [Exit. SIR AND. 'T were as good a deed as to drink when a man's a hungry, to challenge him the field; and then to break promise with him, and make a fool of him. SIR TO. Do 't knight; I'll write thee a challenge; or I'll deliver thy indig- nation to him by word of mouth. MAR. Sweet sir Toby, be patient for to-night; since the youth of the count's was to-day with my lady, she is much out of quiet. For monsieur Malvolio, let me alone with him: if I do not gull him into a nayword, and make him a common recreation, do not think I have wit enough to lie straight in my bed: I know I can do it. SIR TO. Possess us, possess us; tell us something of him. MAR. Marry, sir, sometimes he is a kind of Puritan. SIR AND. O, if I thought that, I'd beat him like a dog. SIR TO. What, for being a Puritan? thy exquisite reason, dear knight? SIR AND. I have no exquisite reason for 't, but I have reason good enough. MAR. The devil a Puritan that he is, or anything constantly but a time-pleaser; an affectioned ass, that cons state without book, and utters it by great swarths: the best persuaded of himself, so crammed, as he thinks, with excellences, that it is his ground of faith that all that look on him love him; and on that vice in him will my revenge find notable cause to work. SIR TO. What wilt thou do? MAR. I will drop in his way some obscure epistles of love; wherein, by the colour of his beard, the shape of his leg, the manner of his gait, the expres- sure of his eye, forehead, and conplexion, he shall find himself most feelingly personated: I can write very like my lady, your niece; on a forgotten matter we can hardly make distinction of our hands. SIR TO. Excellent! I smell a device. SIR AND. I have 't in my nose too. SIR TO. He shall think, by the letters that thou wilt drop, that they come from my niece, and that she 's in love with him. MAR. My purpose is, indeed, a horse of that colour. SIR AND. And your horse now would make him an ass. MAR. ASS, I doubt not. SIR AND. O, 't will be admirable. MAR. Sport royal, I warrant you: I know my physic will work with him. I will plant you two, and let the fool make a third, where he shall find the letter; observe his construction of it. For this night, to bed, and dream on the event. Farewell. SIR TO. Good night, Penthesilea. [Exit. a Rule-conduct-method of life. Possess us-inform us. Affectioned. Affection is several times used by Shakspere in the sense of affectation. SCENE IV.] 283 TWELFTH NIGHT. SIR AND. Before me, she 's a good wench. SIR TO. She's a beagle, true bred, and one that adores me: What o' that? SIR AND. I was adored once too. SIR TO. Let's to bed, knight.-Thou hadst need send for more money. SIR AND. If I cannot recover your niece, I am a foul way out. SIR TO. Send for money, knight; if thou hast her not i' the end, call me Cutª. SIR AND. If I do not, never trust me, take it how you will. SIR TO. Come, come; I 'll go burn some sack; 't is too late to go to bed now. Come, knight; come, knight. [Exeunt. SCENE IV.—A Room in the Duke's Palace. Enter DUKE, VIOLA, CURIO, and others. DUKE. Give me some music :-Now, good morrow, friends : Now, good Cesario, but that piece of song, That old and antique song we heard last night; Methought, it did relieve my passion much; More than light airs and recollected terms ¹º, 16 Of these most brisk and giddy-paced times: Come, but one verse. CUR. He is not here, so please your lordship, that should sing it. DUKE. Who was it? CUR. Feste, the jester, my lord; a fool, that the lady Olivia's father took much delight in He is about the house. DUKE. Seek him out, and play the tune the while. Come hither, boy: If ever thou shalt love, In the sweet pangs of it remember me: For, such as I am all true lovers are; Unstaid and skittish in all motions else, Save, in the constant image of the creature That is belov'd.-How dost thou like this tune? VIO. It gives a very echo to the seat Where Love is thron'd. DUKE. VIO. Thou dost speak masterly: My life upon 't, young though thou art, thine eye Hath stay'd upon some favour that it loves; Hath it not, boy? DUKE. What kind of woman is 't? V10. A little, by your favour. Of your complexion. DUKE. She is not worth thee then. What years, i' faith? [Exit CURIO.-Music. a Call me Cut. "Call me horse," says Falstaff. A cut was a horse. 284 [ACT II. TWELFTH NIGHT. Vio. About your years, my lord. DUKE. Too old, by heaven: Let still the woman take An elder than herself; so wears she to him, So sways she level in her husband's heart. For, boy, however we do praise ourselves, Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm, More longing, wavering, sooner lost and worn, Than women's are. VIO. I think it well, my lord. DUKE. Then let thy love be younger than thyself, Or thy affection cannot hold the bent: For women are as roses; whose fair flower, Being once display'd, doth fall that very hour. VIO. And so they are: alas, that they are so; To die, even when they to perfection grow! Re-enter CURIO and Clown. DUKE. O fellow, come, the song we had last night:- Mark it, Cesario; it is old and plain: The spinsters and the knitters in the sun, And the free maids a that weave their thread with bones, Do use to chant it; it is silly sooth, And dallies with the innocence of love, Like the old age. CLO. Are you ready, sir? DUKE. Ay; prithee sing. CLO. SONG. Come away, come away, death, And in sad cypress b let me be laid; Fly away, fly away, breath ; I am slain by a fair cruel maid. a Free maids. Upon the passage in Milton's 'L'Allegro'- "But come, thou goddess, fair and free, In heaven yclep'd Euphrosyne"-- [Music. Warton remarks that "in the metrical romances these two words, thus paired together, are a common epithet for a lady," as in 'Sir Eglamour,'- “The erle's daughter, fair and free.” Sad cypress. There is a doubt whether a coffin of cypress-wood, or a shroud of cypress, be here meant. The "sad cypress-tree" was anciently associated, as it is still, with funereal gloom, and was probably used for coffins. The stuff called cypress (our crape), which derives its name either from the island of Cyprus, or from the French crespe, was also connected with mournful images. It was probably both white and black. In a subsequent scene of this play Olivia says,— “A cypress, not a bosom, Hides my heart." C In the Winter's Tale' Autolycus reckons amongst his wares- "Lawn as white as driven snow, Cypress black as e'er was crow." In SCENE IV.] 285 TWELFTH NIGHT. My shroud of white, stuck all with yew, O, prepare it; My part of death no one so true Did share it. Not a flower, not a flower sweet, On my black coffin let there be strown; Not a friend, not a friend greet My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown: A thousand thousand sighs to save, Lay me, O, where Sad true lover never find my grave, To weep there. DUKE. There's for thy pains. CLO. No pains, sir; I take pleasure in singing, sir. DUKE. I'll pay thy pleasure then. CLO. Truly, sir, and pleasure will be paid, one time or another. DUKE. Give me now leave to leave thee. CLO. Now, the melancholy god protect thee; and the tailor make thy doublet of changeable taffata, for thy mind is a very opala!-I would have men of such constancy put to sea, that their business might be everything, and their intent everywhere; for that's it that always makes a good voyage of nothing. Farewell. DUKE. Let all the rest give place. [Exit Clown. [Exeunt CURIO and Attendants. Once more, Cesario, Get thee to yon' same sovereign cruelty: Tell her, my love, more noble than the world, Prizes not quantity of dirty lands; The parts that fortune hath bestow'd upon her, Tell her, I hold as giddily as fortune; But 't is that miracle, and queen of gems, That nature pranks her in, attracts my soul. VIO. But if she cannot love you, sir? DUKE. I cannot be so answer'd. Vio. 'Sooth, but you must. Say, that some lady, as, perhaps, there is, Hath for your love as great a pang of heart As you have for Olivia: you cannot love her; You tell her so: Must she not then be answer'd? DUKE. There is no woman's sides Can bide the beating of so strong a passion As love doth give my heart: no woman's heart So big, to hold so much; they lack retention. In Ben Jonson's' Epigrams' we have "solemn cypress" as opposed to "cobweb-lawn." It is difficult, and perhaps unnecessary, to decide the question; for the sentiment is the same, which- ever meaning we receive. a Opal-a gem whose colours change as it is viewed in different lights. 286 [ACT II. TWELFTH NIGHT. VIO. Alas, their love may be call'd appetite,- No motion of the liver, but the palate,- That suffer surfeit, cloyment, and revolt; But mine is all as hungry as the sea, And can digest as much: make no compare Between that love a woman can bear me, And that I owe Olivia. Ay, but I know,- DUKE. What dost thou know? VIO. Too well what love women to men may owe: In faith, they are as true of heart as we. My father had a daughter lov'd a man, As it might be, perhaps, were I a woman, I should your lordship. DUKE. And what's her history? VIO. A blank, my lord: She never told her love, But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud, Feed on her damask cheek: she pin'd in thought; And, with a green and yellow melancholy, She sat, like patience on a monument, Smiling at griefa. Was not this love, indeed? We men may say more, swear more: but, indeed, Our shows are more than will; for still we prove Much in our vows, but little in our love. DUKE. But died thy sister of her love, my boy? VIO. I am all the daughters of my father's house, And all the brothers too;—and yet I know not.— Sir, shall I to this lady? DUKE. Ay, that's the theme. To her in haste; give her this jewel; say, My love can give no place, bide no denay. SCENE V.-Olivia's Garden. Enter Sir TOBY BELCH, Sir ANDREW AGUE-CHEEK, and FABIAN. SIR TO. Come thy ways, signior Fabian. [Exeunt. FAB. Nay, I'll come; if I lose a scruple of this sport, let me be boiled to death with melancholy. a A prosaic explanation of this exquisite passage may seem out of place;-we will make it as brief as possible. The commentators are divided in opinion: some hold that Patience was smiling at another figure of Grief; the contrary opinion is, that she who "never told her love” sat smiling at grief," as placidly as "Patience on a monument." We have pointed the pas- sage agreeably to the latter opinion. There is a somewhat similar idea in Pericles' (Act V., Scene 1)- "Yet thou dost look Like Patience gazing on kings' graves, and smiling Extremity out of act." SCENE V.] 287 TWELFTH NIGHT. SIR TO. Wouldst thou not be glad to have the niggardly rascally sheep-biter come by some notable shame ? FAB. I would exult, man: you know, he brought me out o' favour with my lady, about a bear-baiting here. SIR TO. To anger him, we 'll have the bear again; and we will fool him black and blue-Shall we not, sir Andrew? SIR AND. An we do not, it is pity of our lives. Enter MARIA. SIR TO. Here comes the little villain :-How now, my metal of Indiaª? MAR. Get ye all three into the box-tree: Malvolio 's coming down this walk. He has been yonder i' the sun, practising behaviour to his own shadow, this half-hour: observe him for the love of mockery; for, I know, this letter will make a contemplative idiot of him. Close, in the name of jesting! [The men hide themselves.] Lie thou there [throws down a letter]; for here comes the trout that must be caught with tickling. [Exit MARIA. Enter MALVOLIO. MAL. 'Tis but fortune; all is fortune. Maria once told me she did affect me: and I have heard herself come thus near, that, should she fancy, it should be one of my complexion. Besides, she uses me with a more exalted respect than any one else that follows her. What should I think on 't? SIR TO. Here's an overweening rogue! FAB. O, peace! Contemplation makes a rare turkey-cock of him! how he jets under his advanced plumes! SIR AND. 'Slight, I could so beat the rogue: SIR TO. Peace, I say. MAL. To be count Malvolio ;- SIR To. Ah, rogue! SIR AND. Pistol him, pistol him. SIR TO. Peace, peace! MAL. There is example for 't; the lady of the Strachy 17 married the yeoman of the wardrobe. SIR AND. Fie on him, Jezebel! FAB. O, peace! now he 's deeply in; look, how imagination blows him. MAL. Having been three months married to her, sitting in my state¹‚- SIR TO. O, for a stone-bow 18, to hit him in the eye! a My metal of India. So the original folio-mettle. In the second folio we have nettle. My metal of India is, obviously enough, my heart of gold, my precious girl; my nettle of India is said to be a zoophite, called the Urtica marina, abounding in the Indian seas. Was Sir Toby likely to use a common figure, or one so far-fetched? If Shakspere had wished to call Maria a stinging nettle, he would have been satisfied with naming the indigenous plant,-as he has been in 'Rich- ard II.' and 'Henry IV.,'—without going to the Indian seas. My state-my canopied chair-my throne. 288 [ACT II. TWELFTH NIGHT. MAL. Calling my officers about me, in my branched velvet gown; having come from a day-bed, where I have left Olivia sleeping : SIR TO. Fire and brimstone ! FAB. O, peace, peace! MAL. And then to have the humour of state: and after a demure travel of regard,―telling them I know my place, as I would they should do theirs,- to ask for my kinsman Toby: SIR TO. Bolts and shackles ! FAB. O, peace, peace, peace! now, now. MAL. Seven of my people, with an obedient start, make out for him: I frown the while: and, perchance, wind up my watch 19, or play with my some rich jewelª. Toby approaches; courtesies there to me: SIR TO. Shall this fellow live? FAB. Though our silence be drawn from us with ears, yet peace. MAI.. I extend my hand to him thus, quenching my familiar smile with an austere regard of control: SIR TO. And does not Toby take you a blow o' the lips then? MAL. Saying, "Cousin Toby, my fortunes having cast me on your niece, give me this prerogative of speech: "- SIR TO. What, what? MAL. “You must amend your drunkenness." SIR TO. Out, scab! FAB. Nay, patience, or we break the sinews of our plot. MAL. " Besides, you waste the treasure of your time with a foolish knight;" SIR AND. That 's me, I warrant you. MAL. "One sir Andrew: SIR AND. I knew 't was I; for many do call me fool. MAL. What employment have we here? FAB. Now is the woodcock near the gin. [Taking up the letter. SIR TO. O peace! and the spirit of humours intimate reading aloud to him! MAL. By my life, this is my lady's hand: these be her very C's, her U's, and her T's; and thus makes she her great P's. It is, in contempt of question, her hand. SIR AND. Her C's, her U's, and her T's: Why that? MAL. [reads.] "To the unknown beloved, this, and my good wishes:" her very phrases!-By your leave, wax.-Soft!-and the impressure her Lucrece 20, with which she uses to seal: 't is my lady: To whom should this be? FAB. This wins him, liver and all. a My some rich jewel-some rich jewel of my own. b Courtesies-makes his courtesy. So in the 'Lucrece'— "The homely villain courtsies to her low." * "In the direction of the letter which Malvolio reads," says Steevens, "there is neither a C nor a P to be found." To this Ritson ingeniously answers, To this Ritson ingeniously answers, "From the usual custom of Shak- speare's age, we may easily suppose the whole direction to have run thus: To the Unknown belov'd, this, and my good wishes,' with Care Present." SCENE V.] 289 TWELFTH NIGHT. MAL. [Reads.] "Jove knows, I love: But who? Lips do not move; No man must know." "No man must know."-What follows?—the number's altered!“ No man must know:"-If this should be thee, Malvolio? SIR TO. Marry, hang thee, brock b! MAL. 66 I may command, where I adore : But silence, like a Lucrece knife, With bloodless stroke my heart doth gore; M, O, A, I, doth sway my life." FAB. A fustian riddle! SIR TO. Excellent wench, say I. MAL. “M, O, A, I, doth sway my life."-Nay, but first, let me see,--let me see, let me see. FAB. What a dish of poison has she dressed him! SIR TO. And with what wing the stannyel© checks at it! MAL. “I may command where I adore." Why, she may command me: I serve her, she is my lady. Why, this is evident to any formal capacityd. There is no obstruction in this;-And the end,-What should that alphabetical position portend? If I could make that resemble something in me,- Softly!-M, O, A, I.- SIR TO. O, ay! make up that :--he is now at a cold scent. FAB. Sowter will cry upon 't, for all this, though it be as rank as a fox. MAL. M,—Malvolio ;—M,-why, that begins my name. FAB. Did not I say that he would work it out? the cur is excellent at faults. MAL. M-But then there is no consonancy in the sequel; that suffers under probation A should follow, but O does. FAB. And O shall end, I hope. SIR TO. Ay, or I'll cudgel him, and make him cry, O. MAL. And then I comes behind. FAB. Ay, an you had any eye behind you, you might see more detraction at your heels, than fortunes before you. MAL. M, O, A, I;—This simulation is not as the former: and yet, to crush this a little, it would bow to me, for every one of these letters are in my name. Soft; here follows prose.- "If this fall into thy hand, revolve. In my stars I am above thee; but be not afraid of greatness: Some are borne great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. Thy fates open their hands; let thy blood and spirit embrace them. And, to inure thyself to what thou art like to be, a The number 's altered-the number of the metrical feet is altered. с b Brock-badger. Stannyel-the common hawk. The original has stallion-clearly an error. d Formal-reasonable. A formal man is a man in his senses. • Born. The original has become. COMEDIES.-VOL. II. U 290 [ACT II. TWELFTH NIGHT. cast thy humble slough, and appear fresh. Be opposite with a a kinsman, surly with servants: let thy tongue tang arguments of state; put thyself into the trick of singularity: she thus advises thee that sighs for thee. Remember who commended thy yellow stockings; and wished to see thee ever cross-gartered 21; I say, remember. Go to; thou art made, if thou desirest to be so; if not, let me see thee a steward still, the fellow of servants, and not worthy to touch for- tune's fingers. Farewell. She that would alter services with thee, THE FORTUNATE UNHAPPY." Daylight and champian discovers not more: this is open. I will be proud, I will read politic authors, I will baffle Sir Toby, I will wash off gross acquaintance, I will be point-device", the very man. I do not now fool myself to let imagination jade me; for every reason excites to this, that my lady loves me. She did commend my yellow stockings of late, she did praise my leg being cross-gartered; and in this she manifests herself to my love, and, with a kind of injunction, drives me to these habits of her liking. I thank my stars I am happy. I will be strange, stout, in yellow stockings, and cross-gartered, even with the swiftness of putting on. Jove, and my stars, be praised!-Here is yet a postscript. know who I am. If thou entertainest my love, let it appear in thy smiling; thy smiles become thee well: therefore in my presence still smile, dear my sweet, I prithee." Jove, I thank thee.-I will smile: I will do everything that thou wilt have me. Thou canst not choose but [Exit. FAB. I will not give my part of this sport for a pension of thousands to be paid from the Sophy. SIR TO. I could marry this wench for this device: SIR AND. So could I too. SIR TO. And ask no other dowry with her, but such another jest. Enter MARIA. SIR AND. Nor I neither FAB. Here comes my noble gull-catcher. SIR TO. Wilt thou set thy foot o' my neck? SIR AND. Or o' mine either? SIR TO. Shall I play my freedom at tray-trip 22, and become thy bond-slave? SIR AND. I' faith, or I either? SIR TO. Why, thou hast put him in such a dream, that when the image of it leaves him he must run mad. MAR. Nay, but say true; does it work upon him? SIR TO. Like aqua vitæ with a midwife. MAR. If you will then see the fruits of the sport, mark his first approach before my lady: he will come to her in yellow stockings, and 't is a colour she abhors; and cross-gartered, a fashion she detests; and he will smile upon her, which will now be so unsuitable to her disposition, being addicted to a a Opposite with-of a different opinion-do not hold with him. b See note on 'Love's Labour 's Lost,' Act V., Scene 1. SCENE V.] 291 TWELFTH NIGHT. melancholy as she is, that it cannot but turn him into a notable contempt: if you will see it, follow me. SIR TO. To the gates of Tartar, thou most excellent devil of wit! SIR AND. I'll make one too. [Exeunt. ["The spinsters and the knitters in the sun, And the free maids that weave their thread with bones."] U 2 GFSARGENT المالية J.JACKSONE ACT III. SCENE I.-Olivia's Garden. Enter VIOLA, and Clown with a tabor. VIO. Save thee, friend, and thy music: Dost thou live by thy tabor 23? CLO. No, sir, I live by the church. VIO. Art thou a churchman? CLO. No such matter, sir; I do live by the church; for I do live at my house, and my house doth stand by the church. b VIO. So thou mayst say, the king lies a by a beggar, if a beggar dwell near him ; or the church stands by thy tabor, if thy tabor stand by the church. CLO. You have said, sir.-To see this age!-A sentence is but a cheveril glove ↳ to a good wit: How quickly the wrong side may be turned outward! VIO. Nay, that's certain; they that dally nicely with words may quickly make them wanton. a Lies-sojourns-dwells. แ ↳ Cheveril glove—a kid glovc-a stretching glove. So, in 'Romeo and Juliet,' a wit of cheveril." SCENE I.] 293 TWELFTH NIGHT. CLO. I would, therefore, my sister had had no name, sir. VIO. Why, man ? CLO. Why, sir, her name's a word; and to dally with that word might make my sister wanton: But, indeed, words are very rascals, since bonds disgraced them. Vio. Thy reason, man? CLO. Troth, sir, I can yield you none without words; and words are grown so false, I am loth to prove reason with them. Vio. I warrant thou art a merry fellow, and carest for nothing. CLO. Not so, sir, I do care for something: but in my conscience, sir, I do not care for you; if that be to care for nothing, sir, I would it would make you invisible. Vio. Art not thou the lady Olivia's fool? CLO. No, indeed, sir; the lady Olivia has no folly: she will keep no fool, sir, till she be married; and fools are as like husbands as pilchards are to her- rings, the husband's the bigger; I am, indeed, not her fool, but her corrup- ter of words. VIO. I saw thee late at the count Orsino's. CLO. Foolery, sir, does walk about the orb, like the sun; it shines everywhere. I would be sorry, sir, but the fool should be as oft with your master, as with my mistress: I think I saw your wisdom there. V10. Nay, an thou pass upon me, I'll no more with thee. Hold, there's ex- penses for thee. CLO. Now Jove, in his next commodity of hair, send thee a beard! VIO. By my troth, I'll tell thee; 'I am almost sick for one; though I would not have it grow on my chin. Is thy lady within? CLO. Would not a pair of these have bred, sir? Vio. Yes, being kept together, and put to use. CLO. I would play lord Pandarus of Phrygia, sir, to bring a Cressida to this Troilus. Vio. I understand you, sir; 't is well begged. CLO. The matter, I hope, is not great, sir, begging but a beggar: Cressida was a beggara. My lady is within, sir. I will conster to them whence you come; who you are, and what you would, are out of my welkin: I might say, element; but the word is over-worn. V10. This fellow is wise enough to play the fool; And to do that well craves a kind of wit: He must observe their mood on whom he jests, The quality of persons, and the time; And, like the haggard, check at every feather That comes before his eye. This is a practice a In the 'Testament of Cresseyde,' we have, "Great penurye Thou suffer shalt, and as a beggar dye." [Exit. Robert Henryson was the author of this poem-and not Chaucer. Mr. Dyce points this out. 294 [ACT III. TWELFTH NIGHT. As full of labour as a wise man's art : For folly, that he wisely shows, is fit; But wise men, folly-fallen a, quite taint their wit. Enter Sir TOBY BELCH and Sir ANDREW AGUE-CHEEK. SIR TO. Save you, gentleman. Vio. And you, sir. SIR AND. Dieu vous garde, monsieur. VIO. Et vous aussi; votre serviteur. SIR AND. I hope, sir, you are; and I am yours. SIR TO. Will you encounter the house? my niece is desirous you should enter, if your trade be to her. b VIO. I am bound to your niece, sir: I mean, she is the list of my voyage. SIR TO. Taste your legs, sir ; put them to motion. VIO. My legs do better understand me, sir, than I understand what you mean by bidding me taste my legs. SIR TO. I mean to go, sir, to enter. Vio. I will answer you with gait and entrance: But we are prevented ª. Enter OLIVIA and MARIA. Most excellent accomplished lady, the heavens rain odours on you! SIR AND. That youth 's a rare courtier! "Rain odours!" well. VIO. My matter hath no voice, lady, but to your own most pregnant and vouch- safed ear. SIR AND."6 Odours, pregnant, and vouchsafed: "I'll get 'em all three all ready. OLI. Let the garden door be shut, and leave me to my hearing. Give me your hand, sir. [Exeunt Sir TOBY, Sir ANDREW, and MARIA. V10. My duty, madam, and most humble service. OLI. What is your name ? Vio. Cesario is your servant's name, fair princess. OLI. My servant, sir! 'T was never merry world, Since lowly feigning was called compliment: You 're servant to the count Orsino, youth. VIO. And he is yours, and his must needs be yours; • The original reads- "But wise men's folly falne, quite taint their wit." Tyrwhitt's correction, which we adopt, appears right. b List-limit-bound. • Taste was used by the Elizabethan poets for try;-the use of the word was not limited to touch by the palate. In Chapman's Odyssey' we have— 'He now began To taste the bow." d Prevented-anticipated-gone before. SCENE 1.] 295 TWELFTH NIGHT. Your servant's servant is your servant, madam. OLI. For him, I think not on him for his thoughts, Would they were blanks, rather than fill'd with me! VIO. Madam, I come to whet your gentle thoughts On his behalf: OLI. O, by your leave, I pray you; I bade you never speak again of him: But, would you undertake another suit, I had rather hear you to solicit that, Than music from the spheres. VIO. Dear lady,- OLI. Give me leave, beseech you: I did send, After the last enchantment you did here, A ring in chase of you; so did I abuse Myself, my servant, and, I fear me, you : Under your hard construction must I sit, To force that on you, in a shameful cunning, 'Which you knew none of yours: What might you think? Have you not set mine honour at the stake, And baited it with all the unmuzzled thoughts That tyrannous heart can think? To one of your receiving Enough is shown; a cyprus, not a bosom, Hides my heart: So let me hear you speak. VIO. I pity you. OLI. That's a degree to love. VIO. No, not a grise ª; for 't is a vulgar proof, That very oft we pity enemies. OLI. Why, then, methinks, 't is time to smile again : VIO. O world, how apt the poor are to be proud! If one should be a prey, how much the better To fall before the lion than the wolf! The clock upbraids me with the waste of time.- Be not afraid, good youth, I will not have you : And yet, when wit and youth is come to harvest, Your wife is like to reap a proper man : There lies your way, due west. Then westward-hoe : Grace, and good disposition, 'tend your ladyship; You'll nothing, madam, to my lord by me? OLI. Stay: a Receiving-comprehension. c Cyprus. See note on Act II., Scene 4. a [Clock strikes. Hides my heart. The second folio reads "hides my poor heart." The retardation of the time of syllables was not understood by the editor of that copy. a Grise-step. 296 [ACT III. TWELFTH NIGHT. I prithee tell me, what thou think'st of me. Vio. That you do think you are not what you are. OLI. If I think so, I think the same of you. Vio. Then think you right; I am not what I am. OLI. I would you were as I would have you be! Vio. Would it be better, madam, than I am, I wish it might; for now I am your fool. OLI. O, what a deal of scorn looks beautiful In the contempt and anger of his lip! A murd'rous guilt shows not itself more soon Than love that would seem hid: love's night is noon. Cesario, by the roses of the spring, By maidhood, honour, truth, and everything, I love thee so, that, maugre all thy pride, Nor wit, nor reason, can my passion hide. Do not extort thy reasons from this clause, For, that I woo, thou therefore hast no cause :— But, rather, reason thus with reason fetter ;- Love sought is good, but given unsought, is better. V10. By innocence I swear, and by my youth, I have one heart, one bosom, and one truth, And that no woman has; nor never none Shall mistress be of it, save I alone. And so adieu, good madam; never more Will I my master's tears to you deplore. OLI. Yet come again: for thou, perhaps, mayst move That heart, which now abhors, to like his love. [Exeunt. SCENE II.—A Room in Olivia's House. Enter Sir TOBY BELCH, Sir Andrew AGUE-CHEEK, and FABIAN. SIR AND. No, faith, I'll not stay a jot longer. SIR TO. Thy reason, dear venom, give thy reason. FAB. You must needs yield your reason, sir Andrew. SIR AND. Marry, I saw your niece do more favours to the count's servingman than ever she bestowed upon me; I saw 't i' the orchard. SIR TO. Did she see thee a the while, old boy? tell me that. SIR AND. As plain as I see you now. FAB. This was a great argument of love in her toward you. SIR AND. 'Slight! will you make an ass o' me? a Thee is wanting in the original. It was supplied by Rowe. SCENE II.] 297 TWELFTH NIGHT. FAB. I will prove it legitimate, sir, upon the oaths of judgment and reason. SIR TO. And they have been grand jury-men, since before Noah was a sailor. FAB. She did show favour to the youth in your sight, only to exasperate you, to awake your dormouse valour, to put fire in your heart, and brimstone in your liver: You should then have accosted her; and with some excellent jests, fire-new from the mint, you should have banged the youth into dumbness. This was looked for at your hand, and this was baulked the double gilt of this opportunity you let time wash off, and you are now sailed into the north of my lady's opinion; where you will hang like an icicle on a Dutchman's beard, unless you do redeem it by some laudable attempt, either of valour or policy. SIR AND. An't be any way, it must be with valour; for policy I hate: I had as lief be a Brownist as a politician 24. SIR TO. Why then, build me thy fortunes upon the basis of valour. Challenge me the count's youth to fight with him; hurt him in eleven places; my niece shall take note of it: and assure thyself, there is no love-broker in the world can more prevail in man's commendation with woman, than report of valour. FAB. There is no way but this, sir Andrew. SIR AND. Will either of you bear me a challenge to him? SIR TO. Go, write it in a martial hand; be cursta and brief; it is no matter how witty, so it be eloquent and full of invention; taunt him with the licence of ink: if thou thou'st him some thrice, it shall not be amiss; and as many lies as will lie in thy sheet of paper, although the sheet were big enough for the bed of Ware in England 25, set 'em down; go about it. Let there be gall enough in thy ink; though thou write with a goose-pen, no matter: About it. SIR AND. Where shall I find you? SIR TO. We'll call thee at the cubiculo: Go. FAB. This is a dear manakin to you, sir Toby. [Exit Sir ANDrew. SIR TO. I have been dear to him, lad; some two thousand strong, or so. FAB. We shall have a rare letter from him: but you'll not deliver it. SIR TO. Never trust me then; and by all means stir on the youth to an answer. I think oxen and wainropes cannot hale them together. For Andrew, if he were opened, and you find so much blood in his liver as will clog the foot of a flea, I'll eat the rest of the anatomy. FAB. And his opposite, the youth, bears in his visage no great presage of cruelty. Enter MARIA. b SIR TO. Look where the youngest wren of nine comes. MAR. If you desire the spleen, and will laugh yourselves into stitches, follow a Curst-crabbed. b Wren of nine. The original reads "wren of mine." The wren hatches many eggs: Sydney calls her "the multiplying wren.” The emendation was by Theobald. 298 [ACT III. TWELFTH NIGHT. me: yond' gull Malvolio is turned heathen, a very renegado; for there is no Christian, that means to be saved by believing rightly, can ever believe such impossible passages of grossness. He's in yellow stockings. SIR TO. And cross-gartered? MAR. Most villainously; like a pedant that keeps a school i̇' the church.-I have dogged him like his murtherer: He does obey every point of the letter that I dropped to betray him. He does smile his face into more lines than are in the new map with the augmentation of the Indies 26 : you have not seen such a thing as 't is; I can hardly forbear hurling things at him. I know my lady will strike him; if she do, he 'll smile, and take 't for a great favour. SIR TO. Come, bring us, bring us where he is. [Exeunt. SCENE III.—A Street. Enter ANTONIO and SEBASTIAN. SEB. I would not by my will have troubled you; But, since you make your pleasure of your pains, I will no further chide you. ANT. I could not stay behind you; my desire, More sharp than filed steel, did spur me forth; And not all love to see you, (though so much As might have drawn one to a longer voyage,) But jealousy what might befall your travel, Being skilless in these parts; which, to a stranger, Unguided, and unfriended, often prove Rough and unhospitable: My willing love, The rather by these arguments of fear, SEB. Set forth in your pursuit. My kind Antonio, I can no other answer make, but, thanks, And thanks: and ever oft good turns a Are shuffled off with such uncurrent pay; But, were my worth, as is my conscience, firm, You should find better dealing. What's to do? Shall we go see the reliques of this town? ANT. To-morrow, sir; best, first, go see your lodging. SEB. I am not weary, and 't is long to night: I pray you let us satisfy our eyes a We print the passage as in the original. The modern emendation is, “And thanks, and ever thanks. Often good turns. b Worth-fortune-wealth. 19 SCENE IV.] 299 TWELFTH NIGHT. ANT. With the memorials, and the things of fame, That do renown this city. 'Would you'd pardon me; I do not without danger walk these streets : Once, in a sea-fight, 'gainst the count his galleys, I did some service; of such note, indeed, That, were I ta’en here, it would scarce be answer'd. SEB. Belike, you slew great number of his people? ANT. The offence is not of such a bloody nature; Albeit the quality of the time, and quarrel, Might well have given us bloody argument. It might have since been answer'd in repaying What we took from them; which, for traffic's sake, Most of our city did: only myself stood out: SEB. For which, if I be lapsed in this place, I shall pay dear. Do not then walk too open. ANT. It doth not fit me. Hold, sir, here's my purse; In the south suburbs, at the Elephant, Is best to lodge: I will bespeak our diet, Whiles you beguile the time, and feed your knowledge With viewing of the town; there shall you have me. SEB. Why I your purse? ANT. Haply, your eye shall light upon some toy You have desire to purchase; and your store, I think, is not for idle markets, sir. SEB. I'll be your purse-bearer, and leave you For an hour. ANT. SEB. To the Elephant.- I do remember. [Exeunt. SCENE IV.-Olivia's Garden. Enter OLIVIA and MARIA. OLI. I have sent after him. He says he'll come How shall I feast him? what bestow of him? For youth is bought more oft, than begg'd or borrow'd. I speak too loud.— a Where is Malvolio ?—he is sad, and civil ª, And suits well for a servant with my fortunes ;- Where is Malvolio ? a Civil-grave. The regularity of the civil, civilised, state, gives this meaning of the word. 300 [ACT III. TWELFTH NIGHT. MAR. He's coming, madam; but in very strange manner. possess'd, madam. OLI. Why, what's the matter? does he rave? He is sure MAR. No, madam, he does nothing but smile: your ladyship were best have some guard about you, if he come; for, sure, the man is tainted in his wits a. OLI. Go call him hither.-I am as mad as he, If sad and merry madness equal be. Enter MALVOLIO. How now, Malvolio? MAL. Sweet lady, ho, ho! [Smiles fantastically. OLI. Smilest thou? I sent for thee upon a sad occasion. MAL. Sad, lady? I could be sad: This does make some obstruction in the blood, this cross-gartering. But what of that? if it please the eye of one, it is with me as the very true sonnet is: "Please one, and please all.” OLI. Why, how dost thou, man? what is the matter with thee? MAL. Not black in my mind, though yellow in my legs: It did come to his hands, and commands shall be executed. I think, we do know the sweet Roman hand. OLI. Wilt thou go to bed, Malvolio ? MAL. To bed? ay, sweetheart; and I'll come to thee. OLI. God comfort thee! Why dost thou smile so, and kiss thy hand so oft? MAR. How do you, Malvolio? MAL. At your request? Yes; nightingales answer daws. MAR. Why appear you with this ridiculous boldness before my lady? MAL. "Be not afraid of greatness :"-'t was well writ. OLI. What meanest thou by that, Malvolio ? MAL. "Some are born great,”- OLI. Ha? MAL. “Some achieve greatness,' OLI. What say'st thou? MAL. " And some have greatness thrust upon them." OLI. Heaven restore thee! MAL. "Remember, who commended thy yellow stockings;"- OLI. Thy yellow stockings? MAL. “And wished to see thee cross-gartered." OLI. Cross-gartered? MAL. " Go to thou art made, if thou desirest to be so; OLI. Am I made? MAL. "If not, let me see thee a servant still." OLI. Why, this is very midsummer madness a This good honest prose, as Steevens found it in the original, is rendered metrical by him, by a few verbal omissions. SCENE IV.] 301 TWELFTH NIGHT. Enter Servant. SER. Madam, the young gentleman of the count Orsino's is returned; I could hardly entreat him back: he attends your ladyship's pleasure. OLI. I'll come to him. [Exit Servant.] Good Maria, let this fellow be looked to. Where's my cousin Toby? Let some of my people have a special care of him; I would not have him miscarry for the half of my dowry. [Exeunt OLIVIA and MARIA. MAL. Oh, ho! do you come near me now? no worse man than sir Toby to look to me? This concurs directly with the letter: she sends him on purpose, that I may appear stubborn to him; for she incites me to that in the letter. "Cast thy humble slough," says she;-" be opposite with a kinsman, surly with servants,—let thy tongue tang with arguments of state,-put thyself into the trick of singularity;"—and, consequently, sets down the manner how; as, a sad face, a reverend carriage, a slow tongue, in the habit of some sir of note, and so forth. I have limed her; but it is Jove's doing, and Jove make me thankful! And, when she went away now, Let this fellow be looked to:" Fellow! not Malvolio, nor after my degree, but fellow 2. Why, everything adheres together; that no dram of a scruple, no scruple of a scruple, no obstacle, no incredulous or unsafe circumstance,-What can be said? Nothing, that can be, can come between me and the full prospect of my hopes. Well, Jove, not I, is the doer of this, and he is to be thanked. Re-enter MARIA, with Sir TOBY BELCH and FABIAN. SIR TO. Which way is he, in the name of sanctity? If all the devils of hell be drawn in little, and Legion himself possessed him, yet I'll speak to him. FAB. Here he is, here he is :-How is 't with you, sir? how is 't with you, man? MAL. Go off; I discard you; let me enjoy my private; go off. MAR. Lo, how hollow the fiend speaks within him! did not I tell you?—Sir Toby, my lady prays you to have a care of him. MAL. Ah, ha! does she so? SIR TO. Go to, go to; peace, peace, we must deal gently with him; let me alone. How do you, Malvolio? how is 't with you? What, man! defy the devil: consider, he's an enemy to mankind. MAL. Do you know what you say? MAR. La you, an you speak ill of the devil, how he takes it at heart! Pray God, he be not bewitched! FAB. Carry his water to the wise woman. MAR. Marry, an it shall be done to-morrow morning, if I live. My lady would not lose him for more than I'll say. MAL. How now, mistress? a Fellow. Malvolio accepts the word in the old sense of companion. 302 [ACT III. TWELFTH NIGHT. MAR. O lord! SIR TO. Prithee, hold thy peace; this is not the way: Do you not see you move him? let me alone with him. FAB. No way but gentleness; gently, gently: the fiend is rough, and will not be roughly used. SIR TO. Why, how now, my bawcock? how dost thou, chuck? MAL. Sir? SIR TO. Ay, Biddy, come with me. What, man! 't is not for gravity to play at cherry-pit with Satan: Hang him, foul collier! MAR. Get him to say his prayers; good sir Toby, get him to pray. MAL. My prayers, minx? MAR. No, I warrant you, he will not hear of godliness. MAL. Go, hang yourselves all! you are idle shallow things: I am not of your element; you shall know more hereafter. SIR TO. Is 't possible? [Exit. FAB. If this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction. SIR TO. His very genius hath taken the infection of the device, man. MAR. Nay, pursue him now; lest the device take air, and taint. FAB. Why, we shall make him mad, indeed. MAR. The house will be the quieter. SIR TO. Come, we 'll have him in a dark-room, and bound 27. My niece is al- ready in the belief that he's mad; we may carry it thus, for our pleasure, and his penance, till our very pastime, tired out of breath, prompt us to have mercy on him at which time we will bring the device to the bar, and crown thee for a finder of madmen. But see, but see. : Enter Sir ANDREW AGUE-CHEEK. FAB. More matter for a May morning. SIR AND. Here's the challenge, read it; I warrant there 's vinegar and pepper in 't. FAB. Is 't so saucy? SIR AND. Ay, is 't, I warrant him: do but read. SIR TO. Give me. [Reads.] "Youth, whatsoever thou art, thou art but a scurvy fellow." FAB. Good, and valiant. SIR TO. "Wonder not, nor admire not in thy mind, why I do call thee so, for I will show thee no reason for 't.” FAB. A good note: that keeps you from the blow of the law. SIR TO. “Thou comest to the lady Olivia, and in my sight she uses thee kindly: but thou liest in thy throat, that is not the matter I challenge thee for." FAB. Very brief, and exceeding good senseless. SIR TO. "I will waylay thee going home; where if it be thy chance to kill me, SCENE IV.] 303 TWELFTH NIGHT. FAB. Good. SIR TO. “Thou killest me like a rogue and a villain.' FAB. Still you keep o' the windy side of the law: Good. SIR TO. “Fare thee well; And God have mercy upon one of our souls! He may have mercy upon mine; but my hope is better, and so look to thyself. Thy friend, as thou usest him, and thy sworn enemy, ANDREW AGUE-CHEEK.” SIR TO. If this letter move him not, his legs cannot: I'll give 't him. MAR. You may have very fit occasion for 't; he is now in some commerce with my lady, and will by and by depart. SIR TO. Go, sir Andrew; scout me for him at the corner of the orchard, like a bum-bailie: so soon as ever thou seest him, draw; and, as thou drawest, swear horrible; for it comes to pass oft, that a terrible oath, with a swaggering accent sharply twanged off, gives manhood more approbation than ever proof itself would have earned him. Away. SIR AND. Nay, let me alone for swearing. [Exit. SIR TO. Now will not I deliver his letter: for the behaviour of the young gentleman gives him out to be of good capacity and breeding; his employ- ment between his lord and my niece confirms no less; therefore this letter, being so excellently ignorant, will breed no terror in the youth, he will find it comes from a clodpole. But, sir, I will deliver his challenge by word of mouth; set upon Ague-cheek a notable report of valour; and drive the gentleman (as I know his youth will aptly receive it) into a most hideous opinion of his rage, skill, fury, and impetuosity. This will so fright them both, that they will kill one another by the look, like cockatrices. Enter OLIVIA and VIOLA. FAB. Here he comes with your niece: give them way, till he take leave, and presently after him. SIR TO. I will meditate the while upon some horrid message for a challenge. [Exeunt Sir TOBY, FABIAN, and MARIA. OLI. I have said too much unto a heart of stone, And laid mine honour too unchary on 'tª: There's something in me that reproves my fault; But such a headstrong potent fault it is, That it but mocks reproof. Vio. With the same 'haviour that your passion bears, Go on my master's griefs. OLI. Here, wear this jewel for me, 't is my picture; Refuse it not, it hath no tongue to vex you : And, I beseech you, come again to-morrow. What shall you ask of me that I'll deny; a Unchary on't. So in the original. The ordinary reading is "unchary out." Douce is un- willing, as we are, to disturb the old reading. Olivia has laid her honour too unchary (uncharily) upon a heart of stone. 304 [ACT III. TWELFTH NIGHT. That honour, sav'd, may upon asking give? VIO. Nothing but this, your true love for my master. OLI. How with mine honour may I give him that Which I have given to you? I will acquit you. V10. OLI. Well, come again to-morrow: Fare thee well; A fiend like thee might bear my soul to hell. [Exit. Re-enter Sir TOBY BELCH and FABIAN. SIR TO. Gentleman, God save thee. Vão. And you, sir. SIR TO. That defence thou hast, betake thee to 't: of what nature the wrongs are thou hast done him, I know not; but thy intercepter, full of despight, bloody as the hunter, attends thee at the orchard end: dismount thy tuck, be yare in thy preparation, for thy assailant is quick, skilful, and deadly. VIO. You mistake, sir, I am sure; no man hath any quarrel to me; my remem- brance is very free and clear from any image of offence done to any man. SIR TO. You'll find it otherwise, I assure you therefore, if you hold your life at any price, betake you to your guard; for your opposite hath in him what youth, strength, skill, and wrath, can furnish man withal. Vio. I pray you, sir, what is he? SIR TO. He is knight, dubbed with unhatched a rapier, and on carpet considera- tion 28; but he is a devil in private brawl; souls and bodies hath he divorced three! and his incensement at this moment is só implacable, that satisfaction can be none but by pangs of death and sepulchre: hob, nobb, is his word; give 't, or take 't. VIO. I will return again into the house, and desire some conduct of the lady. I am no fighter. I have heard of some kind of men that put quarrels purposely on others, to taste their valour: belike, this is a man of that quirk. SIR To. Sir, no; his indignation derives itself out of a very competent injury; therefore, get you on, and give him his desire. Back you shall not to the house, unless you undertake that with me which with as much safety you might answer him therefore, on, or strip your sword stark naked; for meddle you must, that 's certain, or forswear to wear iron about you. Vio. This is as uncivil as strange. I beseech you, do me this courteous office, as to know of the knight what my offence to him is; it is something of my negligence, nothing of my purpose. SIR TO. I will do so. Signior Fabian, stay you by this gentleman till my [Exit Sir TOBY. return. Vio. Pray you, sir, do you know of this matter? a Unhatched. Mr. Dyce thinks we should read unhacked; and explains that unhatched means unornamented, which does not suit the context. b Hob, nob―at random-come what will. SCENE IV.] 305 TWELFTH NIGHT. • FAB. I know the knight is incensed against you, even to a mortal arbitrement; but nothing of the circumstance more. VIO. I beseech you, what manner of man is he? FAB. Nothing of that wonderful promise, to read him by his form, as you are like to find him in the proof of his valour. He is, indeed, sir, the most skilful, bloody, and fatal opposite that you could possibly have found in any part of Illyria: Will you walk towards him? I will make your peace with him, if I can. Vio. I shall be much bound to you for 't: I am one that would rather go with sir priest than sir knight: I care not who knows so much of my mettle. Re-enter Sir TOBY, with Sir ANDREW. [Exeunt. SIR TO. Why, man, he 's a very devil; I have not seen such a viragoª. I had a pass with him, rapier, scabbard, and all, and he gives me the stuck in, with such a mortal motion, that it is inevitable; and on the answer, he pays you as surely as your feet hit the ground they step on: They say he has been fencer to the Sophy. SIR AND. Pox on 't, I'll not meddle with him. SIR TO. Ay, but he will not now be pacified: Fabian can scarce hold him yonder. SIR AND. Plague on 't; an I thought he had been valiant, and so cunning in fence, I'd have seen him damned ere I'd have challenged him. Let him let the matter slip, and I 'll give him my horse, gray Capilet. SIR TO. I'll make the motion: Stand here, make a good show on 't; this shall end without the perdition of souls: Marry, I'll ride your horse as well as I ride you. Re-enter FABIAN and VIOLA. [Aside. I have his horse [to FAB.] to take up the quarrel; I have persuaded him the youth's a devil. FAB. He is as horribly conceited of him; and pants, and looks pale, as if a bear were at his heels. SIR TO. There's no remedy, sir; he will fight with you for his oath sake: marry, he hath better bethought him of his quarrel, and he finds that now scarce to be worth talking of: therefore draw, for the supportance of his vow; he protests he will not hurt you. VIO. Pray God defend me! A little thing would make me tell them how much I lack of a man. [Aside. FAB. Give ground, if you see him furious. SIR TO. Come, sir Andrew, there's no remedy; the gentleman will, for his honour's sake, have one bout with you: he cannot by the duello avoid it; a Virago the original is firago. COMEDIES.-VOL. II. TA X 306 [ACT III. TWELFTH NIGHT. but he has promised me, as he is a gentleman and a soldier, he will not hurt you. Come on to 't. SIR AND. Pray God, he keep his oath. [Draws. Enter ANTONIO. Vio. I do assure you 't is against my will. [Draws. ANT. Put up your sword;—If this young gentleman Have done offence, I take the fault on me; [Drawing. If you offend him, I for him defy you. SIR TO. You, sir? why, what are you? ANT. One, sir, that for his love dares yet do more Than you have heard him brag to you he will. SIR TO. Nay, if you be an undertakera, I am for you. Enter two Officers. FAB. O good sir Toby, hold; here come the officers. SIR TO. I'll be with you anon. VIO. Pray, sir, put your sword up, if you please. [Draws. [TO ANTONIO. [To Sir ANDREw. SIR AND. Marry, will I, sir;-and, for that I promised you, I'll be as good as my word: He will bear you easily, and reins well. 1 OFF. This is the man; do thy office. 2 OFF. Antonio, I arrest thee at the suit Of count Orsino. ANT. You do mistake me, sir. 1 OFF. No, sir, no jot; I know your favour well, Though now you have no sea-cap on your head. Take him away; he knows I know him well. ANT. I must obey.-This comes with seeking you. But there's no remedy; I shall answer it. What will you do? Now my necessity Makes me to ask you for my purse: It grieves me Much more, for what I cannot do for you, Than what befalls myself. You stand amaz'd; But be of comfort. 2 OFF. Come, sir, away. ANT. I must entreat of you some of that money. VIO. What money, sir? For the fair kindness you have show'd me here, And, part, being prompted by your present trouble, Out of my lean and low ability I'll lend you something: my having is not much; I 'll make division of my present with you: a Undertaker. Ritson explains this as one who undertakes another's quarrel. SCENE IV.] 307 TWELFTH NIGHT. ANT. VIO. ANT. Hold, there is half my coffer. Will you deny me now? Is 't possible, that my deserts to you Can lack persuasion? Do not tempt my misery, Lest that it make me so unsound a man As to upbraid you with those kindnesses That I have done for you. I know of none; Nor know I you by voice, or any feature : I hate ingratitude more in a man Than lying, vainness, babbling, drunkenness, Or any taint of vice, whose strong corruption. Inhabits our frail blood. O heavens themselves! 2 OFF. Come, sir, I pray you, go. ANT. Let me speak a little. This youth that you see here, I snatch'd one half out of the jaws of death; Reliev'd him with such sanctity of love,- And to his image, which methought did promise Most venerable worth, did I devotion. 1 OFF. What's that to us? The time goes by; away. ANT. But, O, how vild an idol proves this god!— Thou hast, Sebastian, done good feature shame.— In nature there 's no blemish but the mind; None can be call'd deform'd but the unkind. Virtue is beauty; but the beauteous evil Are empty trunks, o'erflourish'd by the devil 29. 1 OFF. The man grows mad; away with him. Come, come, sir. ANT. Lead me on. [Exeunt Officers with ANTONIO. Vio. Methinks, his words do from such passion fly, That he believes himself; so do not I. Prove true, imagination, O, prove true, That I, dear brother, be now ta'en for you! SIR TO. Come hither, knight; come hither, Fabian; we'll whisper o'er a couple or two of most sage saws. Vio. He nam'd Sebastian; I my brother know Yet living in my glass; even such, and so, In favour was my brother; and he went Still in this fashion, colour, ornament, For him I imitate: O, if it prove, Tempests are kind, and salt waves fresh in love! [Exit. SIR TO. A very dishonest paltry boy, and more a coward than a hare: his dis- honesty appears in leaving his friend here in necessity, and denying him; and for his cowardship ask Fabian. FAB. A coward, a most devout coward, religious in it. x 2 308 [ACT III. TWELFTH NIGHT. SIR AND. 'Slid, I'll after him again, and beat him. SIR TO. Do, cuff him soundly, but never draw thy sword. SIR AND. An I do not,— FAB. Come, let 's see the event. SIR TO. I dare lay any money 't will be nothing yet. [Exit. [Exeunt. WISHER. SURGENT ["Once in a sea-fight, 'gainst the count his galleys."] ["Into the chantry."] ACT IV. SCENE I.-The Street before Olivia's House. Enter SEBASTIAN and Clown. CLO. Will you make me believe that I am not sent for you? SEB. Go to, go to, thou art a foolish fellow; Let me be clear of thee. CLO. Well held out, i' faith! No, I do not know you; nor I am not sent to you by my lady, to bid you come speak with her; nor your name is not master Cesario; nor this is not my nose neither.-Nothing that is so, is so. SEB. I prithee vent thy folly somewhere else: Thou know'st not me. 310 [ACT IV. TWELFTH NIGHT. CLO. Vent my folly! he has heard that word of some great man, and now applies it to a fool. Vent my folly! I am afraid this great lubber the world will prove a cockneya.-I prithee now, ungird thy strangeness, and tell me what I shall vent to my lady; shall I vent to her that thou art coming? SEB. I prithee, foolish Greek, depart from me; There's money for thee; if you tarry longer I shall give worse payment. CLO. By my troth, thou hast an open hand:-These wise men that give fools money get themselves a good report after fourteen years' purchase. Enter Sir ANDREW, Sir TOBY, and FABIAN. SIR AND. Now, sir, have I met you again? there 's for you. SEB. Why, there 's for thee, and there, and there : Are all the people mad? [Striking SEBASTIAN. [Beating Sir Andrew. SIR TO. Hold, sir, or I'll throw your dagger o'er the house. CLO. This will I tell my lady straight: I would not be in some of your coats for twopence. SIR TO. Come on, sir; hold. [Exit. [Holding SEB. SIR AND. Nay, let him alone, I'll go another way to work with him; I'll have an action of battery againt him, if there be any law in Illyria: though I struck him first, yet it 's no matter for that. SEB. Let go thy hand. SIR TO. Come, sir, I will not let you go. Come, my young soldier, put up your iron you are well fleshed; come on. SEB. I will be free from thee. What wouldst thou now? If thou dar'st tempt me further, draw thy sword. [Draws. SIR TO. What, what? Nay, then I must have an ounce or two of this malapert blood from you. Enter OLIVIA. OLI. Hold, Toby; on thy life, I charge thee, hold. SIR TO. Madam? OLI. Will it be ever thus? Ungracious wretch, Fit for the mountains and the barbarous caves, Where manners ne'er were preach'd! out of my sight! Be not offended, dear Cesario!— [Draws. a Douce has an ingenious conjecture here:-" The Clown is speaking of vent as an affected word; and we should read,' this great lubberly word will prove a cockney, i. e., will turn out to be cockney language."" But is the little word vent a great lubberly word? Mr. Collier thinks that the Clown, objecting to the term vent, is afraid that the whole world will come to use such cockney phrases. We point the passage as in the original. b The meaning obviously is-after the rate of fourteen years' purchase. This was a high rate; and any money given to fools for a good report was buying the commodity of reputation at a high rate. SCENE II.] 311 TWELFTH NIGHT. Rudesby, be gone!—I prithee, gentle friend, [Exeunt Sir TOBY, Sir ANDREW, and FABIAN. Let thy fair wisdom, not thy passion, sway In this uncivil and unjust extenta Against thy peace. Go with me to my house; And hear thou there how many fruitless pranks This ruffian hath botch'd up, that thou thereby Mayst smile at this: thou shalt not choose but go Do not deny: Beshrew his soul for me, He started one poor heart of mine in thee. SEB. What relish is in this? how runs the stream? Or I am mad, or else this is a dream : Let fancy still my sense in Lethe steep; If it be thus to dream still let me sleep! OLI. Nay, come, I prithee: 'Would thou 'dst be rul'd by me! SEB. Madam, I will. OLI. O, say so, and so be! [Exeunt. SCENE II.-A Room in Olivia's House. Enter MARIA and Clown. MAR. Nay, I prithee put on this gown, and this beard; make him believe thou art sir Topas the curate; do it quickly: I'll call sir Toby the whilst. [Exit MARIA. CLO. Well, I'll put it on, and I will dissemble myself in 't; and I would I were the first that ever dissembled in such a gown. I am not talle enough to become the function well; nor lean enough to be thought a good student: but to be said, an honest man, and a good housekeeper, goes as fairly, as to say, a careful man, and a great scholar. The competitors ª enter. Enter Sir TOBY BELCH and MARIA. SIR TO. Jove bless thee, master parson. d CLO. Bonos dies, sir Toby: for as the old hermit of Prague, that never saw pen and ink, very wittily said to a niece of king Gorboduc, "That that is, is:" so I, being master parson, am master parson: For what is that, but that? and is, but is? a Extent. Johnson supposes that the word is here applied with reference to the legal process of extent. That name is derived from the writ of extensi facias,—by which the goods seized are to be taken at their extended value. But here extent may be used in the sense of stretch-as we say a stretch of power-of violence. ↳ Dissemble—disguise-divest of likeness. Steevens says "Shakspeare has here stumbled on a Latinism." Writers do not stumble upon nice shades of meaning. C • Tall. So the original. In all modern editions we have the word changed into fat-a vulgar antithesis to the subsequent lean. d Competitors-confederates. 312 [ACT IV. TWELFTH NIGHT. SIR TO. To him, sir Topas. CLO. What, hoa, I say,-Peace in this prison! SIR TO. The knave counterfeits well; a good knave. MAL. [in an inner chamber.] Who calls there? CLO. Sir Topas the curate, who comes to visit Malvolio the lunatic. MAL. Sir Topas, sir Topas, good sir Topas, go to my lady. CLO. Out, hyperbolical fiend! how vexest thou this man! talkest thou nothing but of ladies? SIR TO. Well said, master parson. MAL. Sir Topas, never was man thus wronged: good sir Topas, do not think I am mad; they have laid me here in hideous darkness. CLO. Fie, thou dishonest Sathan! I call thee by the most modest terms; for I am one of those gentle ones that will use the devil himself with courtesy: Say'st thou, that house is dark? MAL. As hell, sir Topas. CLO. Why, it hath bay-windows, transparent as barricadoes, and the clear- stories towards the south-north are as lustrous as ebony; and yet còm- plainest thou of obstruction? MAL. I am not mad, sir Topas; I say to you, this house is dark. CLO. Madman, thou errest: I say, there is no darkness but ignorance; in which thou art more puzzled than the Egyptians in their fog. MAL. I say, this house is as dark as ignorance, though ignorance were as dark as hell; and I say, there was never man thus abused: I am no more mad than you are; make the trial of it in any constant question. CLO. What is the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wild-fowl? MAL. That the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit a bird. CLO. What thinkest thou of his opinion? MAL. I think nobly of the soul, and no way approve his opinion. CLO. Fare thee well: Remain thou still in darkness: thou shalt hold the opinion of Pythagoras, ere I will allow of thy wits; woodcock, lest thou dispossess the soul of thy grandam. MAL. Sir Topas, sir Topas,- SIR TO. My most exquisite sir Topas ! CLO. Nay, I am for all waters. and fear to kill a Fare thee well. MAR. Thou mightst have done this without thy beard and gown; he sees thee not. SIR TO. To him in thine own voice, and bring me word how thou findest him: I would we were well rid of this knavery. If he may be conveniently delivered, I would he were; for I am now so far in offence with my niece nave, a Clear-stories. The folio has cleere stores. A clerestory, or clear-story, is that part of the or choir, of a church which rises above the aisles, in which an upper tier of windows is usually in- troduced. In a contract for building the church of Fotheringhay, founded in 1425, this clause occurs:—“ And (in the nave) shall be tenn arches, and above every arche a wyndowe of foure lights, in all points like unto the clerestory of the said quere.”—(Britton's 'Architectural Dic- tionary,' page 160.) SCENE II.] 313 TWELFTH NIGHT. that I cannot pursue with any safety this sport to the upshot. Come by and [Exeunt Sir TOBY and MARIA. by to my chamber. CLO. "Hey Robin, jolly Robin, Tell me how thy lady does." MAL. Fool,- CLO. "My lady is unkind, perdy." MAL. Fool,- CLO. Alas, why is she so?" MAL. Fool, I say; CLO." She loves another -Who calls, ha? [Singing. MAL. Good fool, as ever thou wilt deserve well at my hand, help me to a candle, and pen, ink, and paper; as I am a gentleman, I will live to be thankful to thee for 't. CLO. Master Malvolio! MAL. Ay, good fool. CLO. Alas, sir, how fell you besides your five wits? MAL. Fool, there was never man so notoriously abused: I am as well in my wits, fool, as thou art. CLO. But as well? then you are mad, indeed, if you be no better in your wits than a fool. MAL. They have here propertied me; keep me in darkness, send ministers to me, asses, and do all they can to face me out of my wits. CLO. Advise you what you say; the minister is here.-Malvolio, Malvolio, thy wits the heavens restore! endeavour thyself to sleep, and leave thy vain bibble babble. MAL. Sir Topas,- CLO. Maintain no words with him, good fellow.—Who, I, sir? not I, sir. God b' wi' you, good sir Topas.-Marry, amen.-I will, sir, I will. MAL. Fool, fool, fool, I say,- CLO. Alas, sir, be patient. What say you, sir? I am shent for speaking to you. MAL. Good fool, help me to some light, and some paper; I tell thee, I am as well in my wits as any man in Illyria. CLO. Well-a-day, that you were, sir! MAL. By this hand, I am: Good fool, some ink, paper, and light, and convey what I will set down to my lady; it shall advantage thee more than ever the bearing of letter did. CLO. I will help you to 't. you but counterfeit ? But tell me true, are you not mad indeed? or do MAL. Believe me, I am not; I tell thee true. CLO. Nay, I'll ne'er believe a madman, till I see his brains. I will fetch light, and paper, and ink. MAL. Fool, I'll requite it in the highest degree: I prithee, be gone. a Shent-reproved. you 314 [ACT IV. TWELFTH NIGHT. CLO.. I am gone, sir, And anon, sir, I'll be with you again, In a trice, Like to the old vice, Your need to sustain; Who with dagger of lath, In his rage and his wrath, Cries, ah, ha! to the devil: Like a mad lad, Pare thy nails, dad, Adieu, goodman devil. SCENE III.-Olivia's Garden. Enter SEBASTIAN. SEB. This is the air; that is the glorious sun: This pearl she gave me, I do feel 't, and see 't: And though 't is wonder that enwraps me thus, Yet 't is not madness. Where 's Antonio then? I could not find him at the Elephant: ta, Yet there he was; and there I found this credit a, That he did range the town to seek me out. His counsel now might do me golden service: For though my soul disputes well with my sense, That this may be some error, but no madness, Yet doth this accident and flood of fortune So far exceed all instance, all discourse, That I am ready to distrust mine eyes, And wrangle with my reason, that persuades me To any other trust, but that I am mad, Or else the lady 's mad; yet, if 't were so, She could not sway her house, command her followers, Take and give back affairs, and their despatch, With such a smooth, discreet, and stable bearing, As, I perceive, she does: there's something in 't That is deceivable. But here the lady comes. Enter OLIVIA and a Priest. OLI. Blame not this haste of mine: If you mean well, Now go with me, and with this holy man, Into the chantry by: there, before him, a This credit-this belief-this thing believed. [Exit. SCENE III.] 315 TWELFTH NIGHT. And underneath that consecrated roof, Plight me the full assurance of your faith; That my most jealous and too doubtful soul May live at peace: He shall conceal it, Whiles you are willing it shall come to note, What time we will our celebration keep According to my birth,-What do you say? SEB. I'll follow this good man, and go with you; And, having sworn truth, ever will be true. OLI. Then lead the way, good father :-And heavens so shine, That they may fairly note this act of mine! 5 [Exeunt. · SARGENTZ 003 23. [SCENE I. Spalatro.—“ My lord, I do protest."] ACT V. SCENE I.—The Street before OLIVIA's House. Enter CLOWN and FABIAN. FAB. Now, as thou lovest me, let me see his letter. CLO. Good master Fabian, grant me another request. FAB. Anything. CLO. Do not desire to see this letter. FAB. This is, to give a dog, and in recompense desire my dog again. Enter DUKE, VIOLA, and Attendants. DUKE. Belong you to the lady Olivia, friends? CLO. Ay, sir; we are some of her trappings. DUKE. I know thee well: How dost thou, my good fellow? SCENE I.] 317 TWELFTH NIGHT. CLO. Truly, sir, the better for my foes, and the worse for my friends. DUKE. Just the contrary; the better for thy friends. CLO. No, sir, the worse. DUKE. How can that be? CLO. Marry, sir, they praise me, and make an ass of me; now my foes tell me plainly I am an ass: so that by my foes, sir, I profit in the knowledge of myself; and by my friends I am abused: so that, conclusions to be as kisses, if your four negatives make your two affirmatives, why, then the worse for my friends and the better for my foes ª. DUKE. Why, this is excellent. a CLO. By my troth, sir, no; though it please you to be one of my friends. DUKE. Thou shalt not be the worse for me; there's gold. CLO. But that it would be double-dealing, sir, I would you could make it another. DUKE. O, you give me ill counsel. CLO. Put your grace in your pocket, sir, for this once, and let your flesh and blood obey it. DUKE. Well, I will be so much a sinner to be a double dealer; there's another. CLO. Primo, secundo, tertio, is a good play; and the old saying is, the third pays for all the triplex, sir, is a good tripping measure; or the bells of St. Bennet, sir, may put you in mind; One, two, three. DUKE. You can fool no more money out of me at this throw: if you will let your lady know I am here to speak with her, and bring her along with you, it may awake my bounty further. CLO. Marry, sir, lullaby to your bounty, till I come again. I go, sir; but I would not have you to think that my desire of having is the sin of covetous- ness: but, as you say, sir, let your bounty take a nap, I will awake it anon. Enter ANTONIO and Officers. VIO. Here comes the man, sir, that did rescue me. DUKE. That face of his I do remember well; Yet, when I saw it last, it was besmear'd As black as Vulcan, in the smoke of war: A bawbling vessel was he captain of, For shallow draught, and bulk, unprizable; с With which such scathful grapple did he make With the most noble bottom of our fleet, That very envy, and the tongue of loss, Cried fame and honour on him.-What's the matter? 1 OFF. Orsino, this is that Antonio [Exit Clown. • Coleridge thus explains this passage:-" The humour lies in the whispered 'No!' and the inviting 'Do n't!' with which the maiden's kisses are accompanied, and thence compared to negatives, which by repetition constitute an affirmative.”—('Lit. Remains.') ↳ Triplex.-Triple time in music, a measure in which each bar divides into three equal parts, and is counted one, two, three. Scathful-harmful-destructive. 318 [act v. TWELFTH NIGHT. That took the Phoenix, and her fraught, from Candy; And this is he that did the Tiger board, When your young nephew Titus lost his leg: Here in the streets, desperate of shame and state, In private brabble did we apprehend him. Vio. He did me kindness, sir; drew on my side; But, in conclusion, put strange speech upon me, I know not what 't was, but distraction. DUKE. Notable pirate! thou salt-water thief! ANT. VIO. What foolish boldness brought thee to their mercies, Whom thou, in terms so bloody, and so dear ª, Hast made thine enemies? Orsino, noble sir, Be pleas'd that I shake off these names you give me : Antonio never yet was thief, or pirate, Though, I confess, on base and ground enough, Orsino's enemy. A witchcraft drew me hither: That most ingrateful boy there, by your side, From the rude sea's enrag'd and foamy mouth Did I redeem; a wrack past hope he was: His life I gave him, and did thereto add My love, without retention or restraint, All his in dedication: for his sake, Did I expose myself, pure for his love, Into the danger of this adverse town ; Drew to defend him when he was beset; Where being apprehended, his false cunning, (Not meaning to partake with me in danger,) Taught him to face me out of his acquaintance, And grew a twenty-years-removed thing, While one would wink; denied me mine own purse, Which I had recommended to his use Not half an hour before. How can this be? DUKE. When came he to this town? ANT. To-day, my lord; and for three months before, (No interim, not a minute's vacancy,) Both day and night did we keep company. Enter OLIVIA and Attendants. DUKE. Here comes the countess now heaven walks on earth.. But for thee, fellow, fellow, thy words are madness: Three months this youth hath tended upon me; a Dear. See note on 'Richard III.,' Act I., Scene 3; and on 'Hamlet,' Act I., Scene 2. SCENE 1.] 319 TWELFTH NIGHT. But more of that anon.-Take him aside. OLI. What would my lord, but that he may not have, Wherein Olivia may seem serviceable?— Cesario, you do not keep promise with me. VIO. Madam? DUKE. Gracious Olivia,- OLI. What do you say, Cesario?—Good my lord, VIO. My lord would speak, my duty hushes me. OLI. If it be aught to the old tune, my lord, It is as fat and fulsome to mine ear As howling after music. DUKE. OLI. Still so constant, lord. Still so cruel? DUKE. What! to perverseness? you uncivil lady, To whose ingrate and unauspicious altars My soul the faithfull'st offerings hath breath'd out, That e'er devotion tender'd! What shall I do?` OLI. Even what it please my lord, that shall become him. DUKE. Why should I not, had I the heart to do it, Like to the Egyptian thief, at point of death, Kill what I lovea? a savage jealousy, That sometime savours nobly?—But hear me this: Since you to non-regardance cast my faith, And that I partly know the instrument That screws me from my true place in your favour, Live you, the marble-breasted tyrant, still; But this your minion, whom I know you love, And whom, by heaven I swear, I tender dearly, Him will. I tear out of that cruel eye, Where he sits crowned in his master's spite. Come, boy, with me; my thoughts are ripe in mischief : I'll sacrifice the lamb that I do love, To spite a raven's heart within a dove. Vio. And I, most jocund, apt, and willingly, To do you rest, a thousand deaths would die. OLI. Where goes Cesario? V10. After him I love, More than I love these eyes, more than my life, More, by all mores, than e'er I shall love wife : If I do feign, you witnesses above, Punish my life, for tainting of my love! OLI. Ah me, detested! how am I beguil'd! VIO. Who does beguile you? who does do you wrong? a Thyamis; in Heliodorus. [Going. [Following. 320 [ACT V. TWELFTH NIGHT. OLI. Hast thou forgot thyself? Is it so long?— Call forth the holy father. DUKE. Come, away. OLI. Whither, my lord? Cesario, husband, stay. DUKE. Husband? OLI. Ay, husband, can he that deny? No, my lord, not I. DUKE. Her husband, sirrah? VIO. OLI. Alas, it is the baseness of thy fear That makes thee strangle thy propriety: Fear not, Cesario, take thy fortunes up; Be that thou know'st thou art, and then thou art As great as that thou fear'st.-O, welcome, father! Re-enter Attendant and Priest. Father, I charge thee, by thy reverence, Here to unfold (though lately we intended To keep in darkness what occasion now Reveals before 't is ripe) what thou dost know, Hath newly pass'd between this youth and me. PRIEST. A contract of eternal bond of love, Confirm'd by mutual joinder of your hands, Attested by the holy close of lips, Strengthen'd by interchangement of your rings; And all the ceremony of this compact Seal'd in my function, by my testimony: Since when, my watch hath told me, toward my grave I have travell'd but two hours. DUKE. O, thou dissembling cub! what wilt thou be, When time hath sow'd a grizzle on thy caseª? Or will not else thy craft so quickly grow, That thine own trip shall be thine overthrow? Farewell, and take her; but direct thy feet Where thou and I henceforth may never meet. V10. My lord, I do protest,- OLI. O, do not swear; Hold little faith, though thou hast too much fear. [Exit an Attendant. Enter Sir ANDREW AGUE-CHEEK, with his head broke. [TO VIOLA. SIR AND. For the love of God, a surgeon; send one presently to sir Toby. OLI. What's the matter? SIR AND. He has broke my head across, and has given sir Toby a bloody cox- comb too: for the love of God, your help: I had rather than forty pound I were at home. a Case-skin. 24 SCENE I.] 321 TWELFTH NIGHT. OLI. Who has done this, sir Andrew? SIR AND. The count's gentleman, one Cesario: we took him for a coward, but he's the very devil incardinate. DUKE. My gentleman, Cesario? SIR AND. Od's lifelings, here he is:-You broke my head for nothing; and that that I did, I was set on to do 't by sir Toby. VIO. Why do you speak to me? I never hurt you: You drew your sword upon me without cause; But I bespake you fair, and hurt you not. SIR AND. If a bloody coxcomb be a hurt, you have hurt me; I think you set nothing by a bloody coxcomb. Enter Sir TOBY BELCH, drunk, led by the Clown. Here comes sir Toby, halting, you shall hear more: but if he had not been in drink, he would have tickled you othergates than he did. DUKE. How now, gentleman? how is 't with you? SIR TO. That's all one; he has hurt me, and there's the end on 't.-Sot, didst see Dick surgeon, sot? CLO. O, he's drunk, sir Toby, an hour agone; his eyes were set at eight i' the morning. SIR TO. Then he's a rogue and a passy-measures pavin; I hate a drunken rogue a OLI. Away with him: Who hath made this havoc with them? SIR AND. I'll help you, sir Toby, because we 'll be dressed together. SIR TO. Will you help an ass-head, and a coxcomb, and a knave? a thin-faced knave, a gull? OLI. Get him to bed, and let his hurt be look'd to. [Exeunt Clown, Sir TOBY, and Sir ANDREW. Enter SEBASTIAN. SEB. I am sorry, madam, I have hurt your kinsman ; But had it been the brother of my blood, I must have done no less, with wit, and safety. You throw a strange regard upon me, and by that I do perceive it hath offended you; Pardon me, sweet one, even for the vows We made each other but so late ago. DUKE. One face, one voice, one habit, and two persons; A natural perspective, that is, and is not. a We print this as in the original. Malone also follows the folio in this passage; but the ordi- nary reading is,—“ Then he 's a rogue; after a passy-measure, or a pavin, I hate," &c.—Sir Toby is drunk, and yet he is made by the modern editors to speak with grammatical correctness. The humour lies in his calling "Dick surgeon" by the names of the solemn dances which he abhors, confounding the two. The passamezzo was slow, and accompanied by singing, Mersenne seems to indicate; the pavan a stately dance, deriving its name from pavo, a peacock, because, says the same writer, the dancers spread themselves out in the manner of that bird. COMEDIES.-VOL. II. Y 322 [ACT V. TWELFTH NIGHT. SEB. Antonio, O my dear Antonio ! How have the hours rack'd and tortur'd me, Since I have lost thee! ANT. Sebastian are you? SEB. Fear'st thou that, Antonio? ANT. How have you made division of yourself?— An apple, cleft in two, is not more twin Than these two creatures. OLI. Most wonderful! Which is Sebastian ? SEB. Do I stand there? I never had a brother: Nor can there be that deity in my nature, Of here and everywhere. I had a sister, Whom the blind waves and surges have devour'd :- Of charity, what kin are you to me? [TO VIOLA. What countryman? what name? what parentage? Vio. Of Messaline: Sebastian was my father; SEB. Such a Sebastian was my brother too; So went he suited to his watery tomb: If spirits can assume both form and suit You come to fright us. A spirit I am, indeed: But am in that dimension grossly clad, Which from the womb I did participate. Were you a woman, as the rest goes even, I should my tears let fall upon your cheek, And say-Thrice welcome, drowned Viola! VIO. My father had a mole upon his brow. SEB. And so had mine. Vio. And died that day when Viola from her birth Had number'd thirteen years. SEB. O, that record is lively in my soul! He finished, indeed, his mortal act, That day that made my sister thirteen years. Vio. If nothing lets to make us happy both But this my masculine usurp'd attire, Do not embrace me, till each circumstance Of place, time, fortune, do cohere, and jump, That I am Viola: which to confirm, I'll bring you to a captain in this town, Where lie my maiden weeds; by whose gentle help I was preserv'd, to serve this noble count: All the occurrence of my fortune since Hath been between this lady and this lord. SEB. So comes it, lady, you have been mistook: But nature to her bias drew in that. [To OLIVIA. SCENE I.] 323 TWELFTH NIGHT. You would have been contracted to a maid; Nor are you therein, by my life, deceiv'd, You are betroth'd both to a maid and man. DUKE. Be not amaz'd; right noble is his blood.— If this be so, as yet the glass seems true, I shall have share in this most happy wrack : Boy, thou hast said to me a thousand times, Thou never shouldst love woman like to me. VIO. And all those sayings will I over-swear; And all those swearings keep as true in soul, As doth that orbed continent the fire That severs day from night. DUKE. Give me thy hand; And let me see thee in thy woman's weeds. VIO. The captain, that did bring me first on shore, Hath my maid's garments: he, upon some action, Is now in durance; at Malvolio's suit, A gentleman, and follower of my lady's. OLI. He shall enlarge him :-Fetch Malvolio hither :— And yet, alas, now I remember me, They say, poor gentleman, he 's much distract. Re-enter Clown, with a letter. A most extracting a frenzy of mine own From my remembrance clearly banish'd his.— How does he, sirrah? [TO VIOLA. CLO. Truly, madam, he holds Belzebub at the stave's end, as well as a man in his case may do: he has here writ a letter to you; I should have given it you to-day morning, but as a madman's epistles are no gospels, so it skills not much when they are delivered. OLI. Open it, and read it. CLO. Look then to be well edified, when the fool delivers the madman: the Lord, madam," OLI. How now! art thou mad? By CLO. No, madam, I do but read madness: an your ladyship will have it as it ought to be, you must allow vox. OLI. Prithee, read i' thy right wits. CLO. So I do, madonna; but to read his right wits, is to read thus: therefore perpend, my princess, and give ear. OLI. Read it you, sirrah. a Extracting-absorbing. [TO FABIAN. ь When the Clown begins to read, he raves and gesticulates; upon which Olivia says " Art thou mad?" His answer is clear enough—you must allow vox-you must let me use my voice-if I am to read madness as it ought to be read. Y 2 324 [ACT V. TWELFTH NIGHT. (C FAB. [Reads.] By the Lord, madam, you wrong me, and the world shall know it: though you have put me into darkness, and given your drunken cousin rule over me, yet have I the benefit of my senses as well as your ladyship. I have your own letter that induced me to the semblance I put on; with the which I doubt not but to do myself much right, or you much shame. Think of me as you please. I leave my duty a little unthought of, and speak out of my injury. THE MADLY-USED MALVOLIO." OLI. Did he write this? CLO. Ay, madam. DUKE. This savours not much of distraction. OLI. See him deliver'd, Fabian; bring him hither. My lord, so please you, these things further thought on, To think me as well a sister as a wife, One day shall crown the alliance on 't, so please you, Here at my house, and at my proper cost. DUKE. Madam, I am most apt to embrace your offer. OLI. [Exit FABIAN. Your master quits you [To VIOLA]; and, for your service done him, So much against the mettle of your sex, a So far beneath your soft and tender breeding, And since you call'd me master for so long, Here is my hand; you shall from this time be Your master's mistress. A sister? You are she. Re-enter FABIAN, with MALVOLIO. DUKE. Is this the madman ? OLI. Ay, my lord, this same : How now, Malvolio? MAL. Notorious wrong. OLI. MAL. Lady, you have. Madam, you have done me wrong, Have I, Malvolio? no. Pray you, peruse that letter: You must not now deny it is your hand, Write from it, if you can, in hand, or phrase; Or say, 't is not your seal, not your invention: You can say none of this: Well, grant it then, And tell me, in the modesty of honour, Why you have given me such clear lights of favour; Bade me come smiling and cross-garter'd to you; To put on yellow stockings, and to frown. Upon sir Toby and the lighter people: And, acting this in an obedient hope, Why have you suffer'd me to be imprison'd, Kept in a dark house, visited by the priest, a Mettle-temper-disposition. SCENE I.] 325 TWELFTH NIGHT. And made the most notorious gecka and gull, That e'er invention play'd on? tell me why. OLI. Alas, Malvolio, this is not my writing, FAB. Though, I confess, much like the character: But, out of question, 't is Maria's hand. And now I do bethink me, it was she First told me thou wast mad; thou cam'st in smiling, And in such forms which here were presuppos'd Upon thee in the letter. Prithee, be content: This practice hath most shrewdly pass'd upon thee: But, when we know the grounds and authors of it, Thou shalt be both the plaintiff and the judge Of thine own cause. Good madam, hear me speak; And let no quarrel, nor no brawl to come, Taint the condition of this present hour, Which I have wonder'd at. In hope it shall not, Most freely I confess, myself, and Toby, Set this device against Malvolio here, Upon some stubborn and uncourteous parts We had conceiv'd against him: Maria writ The letter, at sir Toby's great importance; In recompense whereof he hath married her. How with a sportful malice it was follow'd, May rather pluck on laughter than revenge; If that the injuries be justly weigh'd That have on both sides pass'd. OLI. Alas, poor fool! how have they baffled thee! CLO. Why, “some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrown upon them." I was one, sir, in this interlude; one sir Topas, sir; but that 's all one:—“By the Lord, fool, I am not mad; "—But do you remember? Madam, why laugh you at such a barren rascal? an you smile not, he 's gagg'd:" And thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges. MAL. I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you. OLI. He hath been most notoriously abus'd. DUKE. Pursue him, and entreat him to a peace: He hath not told us of the captain yet; When that is known, and golden time convents ª, A solemn combination shall be made a Geck. To geck is to deride, and hence a geck is one derided. [Exit. b Thou. The original has then; and so all other editions. The change to thou was suggested to us by the late Mr. Rodd. с Importance-importunity. ◄ Convents—serves, agrees, is convenient. 326 [ACT V. TWELFTH NIGHT. Of our dear souls-Meantime, sweet sister, We will not part from hence.-Cesario, come ; For so you shall be while you are a man ; But, when in other habits you are seen, Orsino's mistress, and his fancy's queen. CLO. SONG. When that I was and a little tiny boy, With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, A foolish thing was but a toy, For the rain it raineth every day. But when I came to man's estate, With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, 'Gainst knaves and thieves men shut their gate, For the rain it raineth every day. But when I came, alas! to wive, With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, By swaggering could I never thrive, For the rain it raineth every day. But when I came unto my bed, With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, With toss-pots still had drunken head, For the rain it raineth every day. A great while ago the world begun, With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, But that's all one, our play is done, And we 'll strive to please you every day. [Exeunt. [Exit. 3.5LY. [Parish Top.] ILLUSTRATION S. ACT I. ¹ SCENE I.-"That strain again;-it had a likely to have written sound or south, which dying fall." By “fall” is meant cadence (from cado), a musi cal term, signifying the close of a passage or phrase, and which commonly includes the tran- sition from the dissonant to a consonant sound; or, in the language of Lord Bacon, (Sylva Syl- varum, i. 113,) "the falling from a discord to a concord, which maketh great sweetnesse in musicke." Milton, in 'Comus,' uses the word in the same sense as Shakspere; and Pope, in his 'Ode to St. Cecilia's Day,' has "dying fall." "Dying" probably means a diminution of sound, technically expressed by the Italian term dimi- nuendo. $ 2 SCENE I." Like the sweet sound." involves the question of which is the better word. Steevens tells us that the thought might have been borrowed from Sydney's 'Arcadia,' Book I., and he quotes a part of the passage. We must look, however, at the context. Sydney writes, "Her breath is more sweet than a gentle south-west wind, which comes creeping over flowery fields and shadowed waters in the ex- treme heat of summer." The comparison is The sweet breath of Urania is here direct. more sweet than the gentle south-west wind. Sydney adds, "and yet is nothing, compared to the honey-flowing speech that breath doth carry." The music of the speech is not here compared with the music of the wind;-the notion of fragrance is alone conveyed. If in the passage of the text we read south instead of Let us consider whether Shakspere was most sound, the conclusion of the sentence, "Stealing 328 [ACT I. ILLUSTRATIONS. and giving odour," rests upon the mind, and the comparison becomes an indirect one between the harmony of the dying fall and the odour of the breeze that had passed over a bank of vio- lets. Bacon has a beautiful inversion of this simile, in which the comparison between fra- grance and music is not between the objects themselves, but with the similar mode in which music and fragrance are received by the senses, with intervals. "And because the breath of flowers is far sweeter in the air (where it comes and goes like the warbling of music) than in the hand, therefore nothing is more fit for delight," &c. (Of Gardens.) Milton had pro- bably the passage of the text in view when he wrote, "Now gentle gales, Fanning their odoriferous wings, dispense Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole Those balmy spoils." The image in Milton, as well as in Shakspere, combines the notion of sound as well as fragrance. In Shakspere "the sound that breathes"-the soft murmur of the breeze playing amidst beds of flowers-is put first, because of its relation to the "dying fall" of the exquisite harmony; but in Milton the "perfumes" of the "gentle gales " are more prominent than "the whisper,"- because the image is complete in itself, uncon- nected with what precedes. Upon the whole, we should feel inclined not to disturb the usual reading of south were it not for the circumstance that Shakspere has nowhere else made the south an odour-breathing wind; his other representa- tions are directly contrary. In 'As You Like It,' Rosalind says, "You foolish shepherd, wherefore do you follow her Like foggy south, puffing with wind and rain?" In 'Romeo and Juliet' we have the "dew-drop- ping south." In 'Cymbeline,' "The south-fog rot him." 3 SCENE I. "And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds, E'er since pursue me.” The story of Actæon, which Bacon interprets as a warning not to pry into the secrets of the great, receives in the passage before us a much more natural and beautiful explanation. Whitney's ´Emblems,' published in 1586, the fable was somewhat similarly applied :- "Those who do pursue Their fancies fond, and things unlawful crave, Like brutish beasts appear unto the view, And shall at length Actæon's guerdon have: In And as his hounds, so their affections base Shall them devour, and all their deeds deface.” But in Daniel's Fifth Sonnet, published in 1594, we find the thought, and almost the expression, of the text:- "Whilst youth and error led my wand'ring mind, And set my thoughts in heedless ways to range, All unawares a goddess chaste I find, (Diana-like,) to work my sudden change. For her no sooner had mine eye bewray'd, But with disdain to see me in that place, With fairest hand the sweet unkindest maid Casts water-cold disdain-upon my face: Which turn'd my sport into a hart's despair, Which still is chas'd, while I have any breath, By mine own thoughts, set on me by my fair; My thoughts, like hounds, pursue me to my death. Those that I foster'd of mine own accord Are made by her to murder thus their lord.” 4 ¹ SCENE III.—“ Viol-de-gamboys.” The viol-da-gambo, or base viol, a kind of vio- loncello, which had six strings, and was so called because placed between the legs. [Viol-de-gamboys.] 5 SCENE III.-" Till his brains turn o' the toe like a parish-top." "He sleeps like a town top" is an old pro- verbial saying. Fletcher, in the 'Night Walker,' has "And dances like a town-top, and reels and hobbles.” In the passage before us we find that the town- top and the parish-top were one and the same. The custom which existed in the time of Eliza- beth, and probably long before, of a large top being provided for the amusement of the peasants in frosty weather, presents a curious illustration of the mitigating influences of social kindness in an age of penal legislation. SCENE III.] 329 TWELFTH NIGHT. Whilst "poor Tom" was "whipped from tithing to tithing," he had his May-games, and his Christmas hospitalities, and his parish-top, if he remained at home. Steevens explains the custom of the parish-top in a very literal manner:-"A large top was formerly kept in every village, to be whipped in frosty weather, that the peasants might be kept warm by exercise, and out of mischief, while they could not work." We rather believe that our an- cestors were too much accustomed to rely upon other expedients, such as the halter and the stocks, for keeping the peasants out of mischief. But yet, with all the sternness which they called justice, the higher classes of society had an honest desire to promote the spirit of enjoy- ment amongst their humbler fellow-men; and they looked not only without disdain, but with real sympathy, upon "the common recreations of the country folks." Randal Holme gives us a pretty long catalogue of these amusements :— They dare challenge for to throw the sledge; To jump or leap over ditch or hedge; To wrastle, play at stool-ball, or to run; To pitch the bar, or to shoot off the gun; To play at loggets, nine holes, or ten pins; To try it out at foot-ball by the shins; At tick-tack, seize noddy, maw, or ruff; Hot-cockles, leap-frog, or blind-man's buff; To dance the morris, play at barley-break; At all exploits a man can think or speak; At shove groat, 'venter-point, at cross-and-pile; At Beshrew him that 's last at any stile;' At leaping over a Christmas bonfire, Or at the ' drawing dame out o' the mire;' At 'Shoot cock, Gregory,' stool-ball, and what not; Pick-point, top and scourge, to make him hot.” | and was therefore seldom exposed to view, for the alleged reason of being "like to take dust." This lady was more honoured in her generation, and passed through a long life with more uni- form success (with the exception of a little occasional prison and penance), than any other such heroine upon record. She is here noticed by Shakspere; Middleton and Dekkar made her the subject of a comedy; and play-wrights and epigrammatists mention her for half a century. Her familiar name was Moll Cut- purse; the name she received from her parents, Mary Frith. There is a letter in the British Museum, dated February 11, 1612, which gives an amusing account of her doing penance at Paul's Cross :- "This last Sunday Moll Cutpurse, a notorious baggage that used to go in man's apparel, and challenged the field of diverse gallants, was brought to the same place (Paul's Cross), where she wept bitterly, and seemed very penitent; but it is since doubted she was maudlin drunk, being discovered to have tippled off three quarts of sack before she came to her penance. She had the daintiest preacher or ghostly father that ever I saw in the pulpit, one Radcliffe, of Brazenose College in Oxford, a likelier man to have led the revels in some inn of court than to be where he was. But the best is, he did extreme badly, and so wearied the audience that the best part went away, and the rest tarried rather to hear Moll Cutpurse than him.” • SCENE III.-" Wherefore are these things hid? wherefore have these gifts a curtain before them? are they like to take dust, like mis- tress Mall's picture?" In a subsequent scene of this comedy Olivia says, "but we will draw the curtain, and show you the picture." It was a common practice to cover up pictures with curtains. Jack of New- bury is recorded to have had in a fair large parlour which was wainscoted round about, "fifteen fair pictures hanging, which were covered with curtains of green silk fringed with gold, which he would often show to his friends and servants." Jack of Newbury was a staid and wealthy burgher, and was little likely to have had pictures in his possession not fit to be uncurtained. Mistress Mall's picture, how- ever, was probably not of the most correct class, 330 [ACT I. ILLUSTRATIONS. Butler has sung her praise "A bold virago stout and tall As Joan of France, or English Mall.” It is difficult to say whether Butler meant to depreciate Joan of France or exalt English Mall by this association. But, with his strong politi- cal feelings, he could not speak very dispar- agingly of "Mistress Mall," for she robbed General Fairfax upon Hounslow Heath, and left twenty pounds by her will for the conduit to run with wine when Charles II. was restored. In the title page to Middleton and Dekkar's play there is a portrait of this Amazon, which is copied in the preceding page. 7 SCENE III.—“Why dost thou not go to church in a galliard, and come home in a coranto? sink-a-pace." Galliard, a lively dance. "A lighter and more stirring kind of dancing than the pavan," says Morley, a contemporary of Shakspere, who adds :-"The Italians make their galliards plain, and frame ditties to them, which, in their mascaradoes they sing and dance, and manie times without any instruments." Coranto (courante), a quick dance, as the word indicates, and for two persons, according to Mer- senne (Harmonie Universelle, 1636). Morley describes it as, " traversing and running, as our country-dance, but hath twice as much in a strain." Sink-a-pace, i. e., cinque-pace, “the name of a dance," says Sir John Hawkins, "the measures whereof are regulated by the number five." In an old Italian work, 'Il Ballerino' (1581), this dance is described as consisting of four steps and a cadence; and, according to Sir John Davis, in his poem on Dancing— "Five was the number of the music's feet, Which still the dance did with five paces meet.' "J • SCENE V.-" He says, he'll stand at your door like a sheriff's post." We have nothing very certain about the sheriff's posts, except what we find in the allu- sions of the old dramatists. It is commonly thought that these posts were employed to fix proclamations upon; but we are inclined to believe that they were only tokens of authority, to denote the residence of a magistrate. We learn from several old plays that the posts were set up upon the election of a sheriff or chief magistrate, and that they were ornamented. The following passages are given in a commu- nication to the Society of Antiquaries by Mr. John Adey Repton (Archæologia,' vol. xix. p. 383):- "Communis Sensus. Crave my counsell, tell me what maner of man he is? can he entertain a man into his house? can he hold his velvet cap in one hand, and vale his bonnet with the other? knowes he how to become a scar- let gowne? hath he a paire of fresh posts at his doore? Phantastes. Hee's about some hasty state matters, he talks of postes methinks. Com. S. Can he part a couple of dogges brawling in the streete? why then choose him mayor upon my credit, heele prove a wise officer."-( Lingua,' Act II., Sc. 3.-1607.) 3.5.8 SCENE III.] 331 TWELFTH NIGHT. "I'll love your door the better while I know 't. Widow. A pair of such brothers were fitter for posts without door, indeed to make a show at a new-chosen magis- trate's gate, than," &c. (Beaumont and Fletcher's 'Widow,' Act II.) "I hope my acquaintance goes in chains of gold, three and fifty times double; you know who I mean, coz: the posts of his gate are a painting too.” (Dekkar's Honest Whore.') "If e'er I live to see thee sheriff of London, I'll gild thy posts." (Rowley's' Woman never Vexed.') "How long should I be, ere I should put off To the lord chancellor's tomb, or to the sheriff's post ?" (Ben Jonson's Every Man out of his Humour,' Act III., Sc. 9.) Mr. Repton accompanies his paper with two drawings of posts attached to ancient houses in Norwich, of the date of Henry VIII. and of Eliza- beth. We have copied that of the later period, which is well defined by the letters T. P. on one post, and the date 159— on the other. Thomas Pettys, the arms of whose family are in another part of the building,-was mayor of Norwich in 1592. ACT II. 9 SCENE I.-" If you will not murther me for my love, let me be your servant.”" THESE words are uttered by Antonio to Sebastian, whom he has saved from drowning. The com- mentators offer no explanation of them; but we think that they have a latent meaning, and that they allude to a superstition of which Sir Walter Scott has made such admirable use in 'The Pirate.' Our readers will remember that, when Mordaunt has rescued Cleveland from "the breach of the sea," and is endeavouring to re- store the animation of the perishing man, he is thus reproved by Bryce the pedlar: "Are you mad? you, that have lived so long in Zetland, to risk the saving of a drowning man? Wot ye not, if you bring him to life again, he will be sure to do you some capital injury?" Sir Walter Scott has a note upon this passage:— "It is remarkable that, in an archipelago where so many persons must be necessarily endangered by the waves, so strange and inhu- man a maxim should have engrafted itself upon the minds of a people otherwise kind, moral, and hospitable. But all with whom I have spoken agree that it was almost general in the beginning of the eighteenth century, and was with difficulty weeded out by the sedulous in- structions of the clergy and the rigorous injunctions of the proprietors. There is little doubt it had been originally introduced as an excuse for suffering those who attempted to escape from the wreck to perish unassisted, so that, there being no survivor, she might be con- sidered as lawful plunder." It appears to us, however, if we do not mistake the meaning of our text, "if you will not murther me for my love, let me be your servant," that the superstition was not confined to the Orkneys in the time of Shakspere. Why should Sebastian murder Antonio for his love if this superstition were not alluded to? Indeed, the answer of Sebastian distinctly refers to the office of hu- manity which Antonio had rendered him, and appears to glance at the superstition as if he perfectly understood what Antonio meant: "If you will not undo what you have done, that is, kill him whom you have recovered, desire it not." The vulgar opinion is here reversed. 10 SCENE III.-"How now, my hearts? Did you never see the picture of we three?" Our ancestors had some good practical jokes that never tired by repetition, and this was one of them. 'The picture of we three" was a picture, or sign, of Two Fools, upon which was an inscription, we be three, so that the unlucky wight who was tempted to read it supplied "argument for a week, laughter for a month, and a good jest for ever." Beaumont and Fletcher allude to this in the Queen of Co- rinth :'- "Nean. He is another ass, he says, I believe. Uncle. We be three, heroical prince. Nean. Nay, then, we must have the picture of 'em, and the word nos sumus." The answer of the Clown in the text to "here comes the fool" is wonderfully adroit. 332 [ACT II. ILLUSTRATIONS. D I SCENE III.—“ Let our catch be, Thou | kins. We here give the real notes, putting knave.'" them into the treble clef, instead of the contra- Sir John Hawkins, in his 'History of Music,' tenor. The effect of this catch must have inserts the following as the catch sung by the depended wholly on the humour with which three characters, but does not state his autho- it was sung: the same, indeed, may be said of rity. Dr. Burney evidently copies from Haw- most catches:— Hold thy peace! and I pri - thee hold thy peace. 2 Thou knave! Hold thy peace, thou knave! 3 Thou knave! 12 SCENE III.-"Malvolio's a Peg-a-Ramsay, and Three merry men be we.” Sir John Hawkins says "Peggy Ramsey is the name of some old song the following is the tune to it;" and gives the subjoined upper notes, but cites no authority. The base and accompaniment we have added. 010 00. 100- "For three merry men, and three merry men, And three merry men we be." Sir J. Hawkins likewise gives a stanza of an old song, in which the same words-changing "men" into "boys -are introduced. This air, however, is to be found in William | printed from Anthony à Wood's black-letter Ballet's Lute Book,' a "highly interesting copy:- manuscript in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, (D. 1. 21,) which appears not only to be older than Queen Elizabeth's 'Virginal Book,' but to contain a greater number of po- pular tunes of the time." (Chappell's 'Collection of National English Airs,' ii. 115.) The words, "Three merry men we be," are in the song of Robin Hood and the Tanner,' as re- 13 SCENE III. "There dwelt a man in Babylon, lady, lady.' ,,, The burden of "lady, lady," appears to have SCENE V.] 333 TWELFTH NIGHT. been common to several songs. The words which Sir Toby sings are found in the ballad of 'Constant Susanna,' which Percy describes as a poor dull performance, and very long. He gives us the following stanza :— "There dwelt a man in Babylon Of reputation great by fame; He took to wife a fair woman, Susanna she was call'd by name: A woman fair and virtuous; Lady, lady: Why should we not of her learn thus To live godly?" Lit. Rabbi Busy, sir; he is more than an elder, he is a prophet, sir. Quar. O, I know him! A baker, is he not? Lit. He was a baker, sir, but he does dream now, and see visions; he has given over his trade. Quar. I remember that too; out of a scruple he took, that, in spiced conscience, those cakes he made were served to bridales, May-poles, morrices, and such profane feasts and meetings. His Christian name is Zeal-of-the-land. Lit. Yes, sir; Zeal-of-the-land Busy." 16 SCENE IV.-"Light airs and recollected terms." Term forms no part of the technical language of music. Its plural may possibly be intended 14 SCENE III." Farewell, dear heart, since I by Shakspere to signify those passages called must needs be gone."" This, again, is an old ballad which we find in Percy, who reprints it from 'The Golden Gar- land of Princely Delights :'- "Farewell, dear love; since thou wilt needs be gone, Mine eyes do show my life is almost done. Nay, I will never die, so long as I can spy There be many mo, though that she do go, There be many mo, I fear not : Why then let her go, I care not. Farewell, farewell; since this I find is true, I will not spend more time in wooing you: But I will seek elsewhere, if I may find love there: Shall I bid her go? what and if I do? Shall I bid her go and spare not? O no, no, no, I dare not. Ten thousand times farewell;-yet stay a while:- Sweet, kiss me once; sweet kisses time beguile: I have no power to move. Wilt thou needs be gone? Wilt thou needs be gone? How now! am I in love? Go then, all is one. Oh, hie thee! Nay, stay, and do no more deny me. Once more adieu, I see loth to depart Bids oft adieu to her that holds my heart. But seeing I must lose thy love, which I did choose, Go thy way for me, since that may not be. Go thy ways for me. But whither? Go, oh, but where I may come thither. What shall I do? my love is now departed. She is as fair as she is cruel-hearted. She would not be entreated, with prayers oft repeated. If she come no more, shall I die therefore? If she come no more, what care I? Faith, let her go, or come, or tarry." 15 SCENE III.-"Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale ?" This reproof of the steward is of universal ap- plication; but it was probably an indirect sar- casm against the rising sect of the Puritans, who were something too apt to confound virtue with asceticism. Ben Jonson speaks more di- rectly in the matter :- "Winw. What call you the reverend elder you told me of, your Banbury man? phrases; but it is more likely that the word was originally written tunes, which would render the expression intelligible. In the folios it is spelt termes: and this, in not very clear manu- script, might easily have been mistaken by the compositor for tunes. Dr. Johnson thinks that "recollected" means recalled; in which we agree, if by "recalled" is to be understood known by heart-by memory. Dr. Warburton's conjecture, that by "recollected" is meant studied, will not find many supporters. 17 SCENE V.-" The lady of the Strachy." This has been called a desperate passage; and many wild guesses have accordingly been made to explain it. We subjoin a note from a corre- spondent, which probably comes as near to the mark as we may expect:-"Steevens conjec- tured, the lady of the Starchy-i. e., laundry; but this is not the point at which Malvolio aimed, viz., an example of a lady of high degree marrying her servingman. Mr. R. P. Knight suggested Strachy to be a corruption of the Italian Stratico:-' Cosi chi amasi il governa- tore di Messina,' says Menage. The word is written Stradico in Florio, and was no doubt applied to governors elsewhere than at Messina. The low Latin, Strategus, or Straticus, or Strati- gus, was in common use for a prefect or ruler of a city or province, (Du Cange,) from the Greek Στρατηγὸς. Strategus in English would be Strategy, which, by various corruptions- Stratgy, Stratchy-may have become Malvolio's Strachy; or it may have descended from the Italian directly. The example was probably well known of a lady of the Strachy-i. e., the governor—marrying the yeoman of the ward- robe." And yet the context would rather point to some corruption of the name of a place. Warburton conjectures that Strachy was Tra- 334 [ACT II. ILLUSTRATIONS. chy, Thrace. Malvolio would hardly say, "the lady" of the governor, for the widow of the governor; but he would say, the lady of such a land, for the princess. Unquestionably the allusion is to some popular story-book-one of those in which "Fair truth have told That queens of old Have now and then Married with private men."-R. Brome. Where the scene of the elevation of "the yeoman of the wardrobe" was placed by the story-book writer was of little consequence. It might be Thrace. It might be Astrakhan-Astracan— easily enough corrupted into A-strachy—and as easily metamorphosed by a printer into the Strachy. Mr. Collier suggests that it may be "the lady of the Strozzi.” 18 SCENE V.-" O, for a stone-bow." A stone-bow is a cross-bow which shoots stones. It was a toy for children, according to Beau- mont and Fletcher :- CC children will shortly take him For a wall, and set their stone-bows in his forehead." 19 SCENE V." Wind up my watch." It is said that watches for the pocket were first brought to England from Germany, in 1580. We give a representation of an ancient watch from a remarkable specimen. This watch is embellished on the face with roses and thistles conjoined, and has no minute-hand : these circumstances fix its date somewhere in the reign of James I. It is of silver, about the size of a walnut; the lid shuts the face from view, and when closed it looks like a small pear. In Hollar's print of Summer-a half-length portrait of a lady-a watch, similar to our specimen, hangs from the girdle. اال VIII IX 20 SCENE V.-" The impressure her Lucrece." One of the many evidences of Shakspere's familiarity with ancient works of art, in com- mon with the best educated of his time. We give a copy of an antique "Lucrece; ". 21 SCENE V. "Wished to see thee ever cross-gartered." Barton Holyday, who wrote fifty years after Shakspere, describes this fashion in connection with a Puritan :- "Had there appear'd some sharp cross-garter'd man, Whom their loud laugh might nickname Puritan ; Cas'd up in factious breeches, and small ruff; That hates the surplice, and defies the cuff.” The fashion is of great antiquity. In the 24th vol. of the 'Archæologia,' Mr. Gage has described an illumination of a manuscript of the tenth century in the library of the Duke of Devon- shire, where this costume is clearly depicted. Mr. Gage says-"The kind of bandaged stock- ing, so common in all Saxon figures, which is seen to advantage in the miniature of the Magi, where the principal figure (copied in the cut) SCENE V.] 335 TWELFTH NIGHT. has garters of gold, with tassels, was, as M. Langlois, the able and learned professor of painting at Rouen, informs me, in general use among the shepherds and country people of ner. France during the 15th and 16th centuries. In the latter century the butchers often rode on horseback with their legs clothed in this man- This part of the dress was made of white linen, and was called "des lingettes," a name applied also to a part of the ancient costume of women of the Pays de Caux, that covered the arm. In the Apennines I have myself seen the contadini with a kind of stocking bandaged all the way up. The Highland stocking bears some resemblance to the costume." 22 SCENE V.-" Shall I play my freedom at tray-trip." In Cecil's 'Correspondence,' Letter 10, we have the following passage :-"There is great danger of being taken sleepers at tray-trip, if the king sweep suddenly." This led Tyrwhitt to conjecture that the game was draughts. A satire called 'Machiavel's Dog,' 1617, confirms this opinion:- "But, leaving cards, let 's go to dice awhile,- To passage, treitippe, hazard, or mum-chance." 336 [ACT III: ILLUSTRATIONS. 3.SLY. [The Bed of Ware ACT III. 23 SCENE I. -"Dost thou live by thy tabor?” TARLETON, the celebrated clown of the ancient stage, was represented with a tabor in a print prefixed to his 'Jests,' 1611. "The instrument,” says Douce, "is found in the hands of fools long before the time of Shakspeare." At the end of the Introductory Remarks we have given a por- trait of Tarleton with his tabor; but this is not copied from the 'Jests.' It is taken from the Harleian MS. No. 3885-'An Alphabet of Initial Letters, by John Scottowe.' On the title are the arms of Queen Elizabeth and the following in- scription:- "God save Queene Elizabeth longe to reygne." This circumstance proves this por- trait of "Mr. Tharlton" (as his name is spelt by Scottowe) to be an earlier performance than the figure prefixed to the 'Jests,' 1611; and, as the two are exactly alike, our portrait is pro- bably the original from which the old woodcut was copied. The figure in the Alphabet' stands in the centre of a letter T: the following verses in the margin :- "The picture here set down Within this letter T, Aright doth show the forme and shap Of Tharlton unto the. When he in pleasaunt wise The counterfet expreste, Of cloune wt cote of russet hew, And sturtops wt ye rest. Whoe merry many made When he appeard in sight, The grave and wise, as well as rude, At him did take delight. The partie nowe is gone, And closlie laid in claye; Of all the jesters in the lande He bare the praise awaie. Nowe hath he plaid his p'te, And sure he is of this, If he in Christe did die: to live With him in lasting blis." SCENE IV.] 337 TWELFTH NIGHT. 24 SCENE II.-"I had as lief be a Brownist as a politician." bed, which is more interesting than any descrip- tion. The Brownists-so called from Robert Brown, who was a connexion of the Lord Treasurer 26 SCENE II." He does smile his face into Cecil, and was educated at Corpus Christi Col- more lines than are in the new map with lege, Cambridge-gave great offence to the the augmentation of the Indies." Church about 1580 by maintaining that her Shakspere, who paid no attention to geo- discipline was Popish and Antichristian, and graphy, according to the commentators, here her ministers not rightly ordained. The sect The sect describes a new map "—an accession to the geo- was subsequently known by the name of Inde-graphy of his day. This map is found in ‘Lin- pendents. (See Neal's 'History of the Puri- schoten's Voyages,' 1598; and we have engraved tans.") a portion of it,-about a fourth part of the ori- ginal-exhibiting the islands of Malacca and (C 25 SCENE II.—“Big enough for the bed of Ware Borneo, to show how accurately the "careless in England." We have given a representation of this famous poet has described its peculiarities. "} * SCENE IV.—“ We 'll have him in a dark-room, and bound." Chains and darkness were the universal pre- scriptions for lunatics in the time of Shakspere. There was a third remedy, to which Rosalind alludes in 'As You Like It:'-"Love is a mad- ness, and deserves as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do.” 28 SCENE IV.—“He is knight, dubbed with un- hatched rapier, and on carpet consideration." The knights of peace-mayors, and justices, and serjeants-at-law, and physicians-grave men who hate a hatched rapier, which has seen ser- vice, as bitterly as King James, are called carpet knights, according to Randle Holme :-" If it be the king's pleasure to knight any such per- COMEDIES.-VOL. II. Z 338 [ACT III. ILLUSTRATIONS. sons, seeing they are not knighted as soldiers, they are not therefore to use the horse- man's title or spurs: they are only termed simply miles and milites, knights of the carpet, or knights of the green cloth, to distinguish them from knights that are dubbed as soldiers in the field; though in these our days they are created or dubbed with the like ceremony as the others are, by the stroke of a naked sword upon their shoulder, with the words, Rise up Sir T. A., knight." SMA O SE O NJESUS V 29 SCENE IV. "Empty trunks, o'erflourish'd by the devil.” The allusion is to the beautifully-carved trunks of the Elizabethan age, of which we have given two specimens above. 340 COSTUME. C cellio. The embroidered jacket and greaves, "the snowy camisa and the shaggy capote,” of the Greek captains, have become almost as familiar to our sight as a frock-coat, Wellington boots, and trousers. to The Merchant of Venice,' 'Othello,' and the 'Habiti Antiche e Moderni' of Cæsare Ve- "The Taming of the Shrew,' for the Venetian and English costume of the commencement of the seventeenth century, and confining our pictorial illustrations of this part of our la- bours to the dress of a woman of Mitylene (supposed the Messalina of the play) from [Middle Temple Hall.] O O J.JACKSON. the COSTUME 339 COSTUME. THE Comedy of 'Twelfth Night' is amongst the most perplexing of Shakspere's plays to the sticklers for accuracy of costume. The period of action is undefined. The scene is laid in Illyria, whilst the names of the Dramatis Per- sonæ are a mixture of Spanish, Italian, and English. The best mode of reconciling the discrepancies arising from so many conflicting circumstances appears to us to be the assump- tion, first, that duke or count Orsino (for he is indifferently so entitled in the play) is a Vene- tian governor of that portion of Dalmatia which was all of the ancient Illyria remaining under the dominion of the republic at the com- mencement of the seventeenth century, and that his attendants, Valentine, Curio, &c., as well as Olivia, Malvolio, and Maria, are also Venetians; and, secondly, that Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Ague-cheek are English resi- dents; the former, a maternal uncle to Olivia -her father, a Venetian count, having married Sir Toby's sister. If this be allowed, and there is nothing that we can perceive in the play to pre- vent it, there is no impropriety in dressing the above-named characters in the Venetian and English costume of Shakspere's own time, and the two sea-captains and Sebastian in the very picturesque habits of "Chimariot, Illyrian, and dark Suliote." Viola, the twin-sister of Sebas- tian, might therefore, by assuming the national male dress, be more readily mistaken for her brother, as it is absurd to suppose that she could otherwise, by accident, light upon a fac- simile of the suit he appears in; and any mani- fest difference, either in form or colour, would tend to destroy the illusion, as we have already observed in the case of the two Dromios and their masters ('Comedy of Errors). We leave the decision, however, to our readers, at the same time referring those who think with us MEASURE FOR MEASURE INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. THIS Comedy was first printed in the folio collection of 1623. The original edition is divided into acts and scenes. It also gives the enumeration of characters as we have printed them, such a list of "the names of the actors" being rarely presented in the early copies. It has been recently ascer- tained that 'Measure for Measure' was pre- sented at Court by the King's players (the company to which Shakspere belonged) in 1604. The general outline of the story upon which 'Measure for Measure' is founded is presented to us in such different forms, and with reference to such distinct times and persons, that, whether historically true or not, we can have no doubt of its uni- versal interest. It is told of an officer of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy; of Oliver le Diable, the wicked favourite of Louis XI.; of Colonel Kirke, in our own country; of a captain of the Duke of Fer- rara. In all these cases an unhappy woman sacrifices her own honour for the promised safety of one she loves; and in all, with the exception of the case of Colonel Kirke, the abuser of authority is punished with death. Whatever interest may attach to the narra- tive of such an event, it is manifest that the dramatic conduct of such a story is full of difficulty, especially in a scrupulous age. But the public opinion, which, in this par- ticular, would operate upon a dramatist in our own day, would not affect a writer for the stage in the times of Elizabeth and James; and, in point of fact, plots far more offensive became the subject of very popular dramas long after the times of Shakspere. It appears to us that, adopting such a subject in its general bearings, he has ma- naged it with uncommon adroitness by his deviations from the accustomed story. By introducing a contrivance by which the heroine is not sacrificed, he preserves our respect for her, which would be involuntarily lost if she fell, even though against her own will; and by this management he is also enabled to spare the great offender without an unbearable violation of our sense of justice. The leading idea of the character of Isa- bella is that of one who abides the direst temptation which can be presented to a youthful, innocent, unsuspecting, and affec- tionate woman-the temptation of saving the life of one most dear, by submitting to a shame which the sophistry of self-love might represent as scarcely criminal. All other writers who have treated the subject have conceived that the temptation could not be resisted. Shakspere alone has con- fidence enough in female virtue to make Isabella never for a moment even doubt of her proper course. But he has based this virtue, most unquestionably, upon the very highest principle upon which any virtue can be built. The foundation of Isabella's cha- racter is religion. The character of Angelo is the antagonist to that of Isabella. In a city of licentiousness he is "A man of stricture and firm abstinence.” He is "Precise; Stands at a guard with envy; scarce confesses That his blood flows." He is one who "Doth rebate and blunt his natural edge With profits of the mind, study and fast." But he wanted the one sustaining principle by which Isabella was upheld. After Shak- spere had conceived the character of Isabella, and in that conception had made it certain that her virtue must pass unscathed through the fire, he had to contrive a series of in- cidents by which the catastrophe should proceed onward through all the stages of Angelo's guilt of intention, and terminate in his final exposure. Mr. Hallam says, "There is great skill in the invention of Mariana, and without this the story could not have anything like a satisfactory termi- nation." But there is great skill also in the management of the incident in the Duke's hands, as well as in the invention; and this is produced by the wonderful propriety with which the character of the Duke is drawn. He is described by Hazlitt as a very im- INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 343 posing and mysterious stage character, ab-| sorbed in his own plots and gravity. This is said depreciatingly. But it is precisely this sort of character that Shakspere meant to put in action. And here, then, as it appears to us, we have a key to the purpose of the poet in the introduction of what constitutes the most unpleasant portion of this play, the exhi- bition of a very gross general profligacy. There is an atmosphere of impurity hanging like a dense fog over the city of the poet. The philosophical ruler, the saintly votaress, and the sanctimonious deputy, appear to belong to another region than that in which they move. This, possibly, was not neces- sary for the higher dramatic effects of the comedy; but it was necessary for those lessons of political philosophy which we think Shakspere here meant to inculcate, and which he appears to us on many occa- sions to have kept in view in his later plays. "Look, the unfolding star calls up the shepherd." In the midst of the most busi- ness-like and familiar directions occur these eight words of the highest poetry. By a touch almost magical Shakspere takes us in an instant out of that dark prison, where we have been surrounded with crime and suffer- ing, to make us see the morning star bright over the hills, and hear the tinkle of the sheep-bell in the folds, and picture the shepherd bidding the flock go forth to pasture, before the sun has lighted up the dewy lawns. In the same way, throughout this very extraordinary drama, in which the whole world is represented as one great prison-house, full of passion, and ignorance, and sorrow, we have glimpses every now and then of something beyond, where there shall be no alternations of mildness and severity, but a condition of equal justice, serene as the valley under "the unfolding star," and about to rejoice in the dayspring. ["The unfolding star."] 4 A 2 PERSONS REPRESENTED. VINCENTIO, the Duke. Appears, Act I. sc. 1; sc. 4. Act II. sc. 3. Act III. sc. 1; sc. 2. Act IV. sc. 1; sc. 2; sc. 3; sc. 5. Act V. sc. 1. ANGELO, the Deputy [in the Duke's absence]. Appears, Act I. sc. 1. Act II. sc. 1; sc. 2; sc. 4. Act IV. sc. 4. Act V. sc. 1. ESCALUS, an ancient lord [joined with Angelo in the deputation]. Appears, Act I. sc. 1. Act II. sc. 1. Act III. sc. 2. Act IV. sc. 4. Act V. sc. 1. CLAUDIO, a young gentleman. Appears, Act I. sc. 3. Act III. sc. 1. Act IV. sc. 2. Act V. sc. 1. LUCIO, a fantastic. Appears, Act I. sc. 2; sc. 3; sc. 5. Act II. sc. 2. Act III. sc. 2; sc. 3. Act V. sc. 1. Two other like Gentlemen. Appear, Act I. sc. 2; sc. 3. Provost. Appears, Act I. sc. 3. Act II. sc. 1; sc. 2; sc. 3. Act III. sc. 1; sc. 2. Act IV. sc. 2; sc. 3. Act V. sc. 1. THOMAS, a friar. Appears, Act I. sc. 4. PETER, a friar. Appears, Act IV. sc. 5; sc. 6. Act V. sc. 1. A Justice. Appears, Act II. sc. 1. ELBOW, a simple constable. Appears, Act II. sc. 1. Act III. sc. 2. FROTH, a foolish gentleman. Appears, Act II. sc. 1. Clown. Appears, Act II. sc. 1. Act IV. sc. 2; sc. 3. ABHORSON, an executioner. Appears, Act IV. sc. 2; sc. 3. BARNARDINE, a dissolute prisoner. Appears, Act IV. sc. 3. Act V. sc. 1. ISABELLA, sister to Claudio. Appears, Act I. sc. 5. Act II. sc. 2; sc. 4. Act III. sc. 1. Act IV. sc. 1; sc. 3; sc. 6. Act V. sc. 1. MARIANA, betrothed to Angelo. Appears, Act IV. sc. 1; sc. 6. Act V. sc. 1. JULIET, beloved of Claudio. Appears, Act I. sc. 3. Act II. sc. 3. Act V. sc. 1. FRANCISCA, a nun. Appears, Act I. sc. 5. MISTRESS OVERDONE, a bawd. Appears, Act I. sc. 2. Act III. sc. 2. Lords, Gentlemen, Guards, Officers, and other Attendants. SCENE, VIENNA. KARGENT. [SCENE III. Street in Vienna.] W. T. GREEN, ACT I. SCENE I.—An Apartment in the Duke's Palace. Enter DUKE, ESCALUS, Lords, and Attendants. DUKE. Escalus,— ESCAL. My lord. DUKE. Of government the properties to unfold, Would seem in me to affect speech and discourse; Since I am put to know a, that your own science Exceeds, in that, the lists of all advice b My strength can give you: Then, no more remains: But that, to your sufficiency as your worth, is able ; And let them work. The nature of our people, a Put to know-equivalent to I cannot avoid knowing. b Lists-limits. • We encounter at the onset one of the obscure passages for which this play is remarkable. The text is usually pointed thus:- 346 [ACT I. MEASURE FOR MEASURE. Our city's institutions, and the terms a For common justice, you are as pregnant in, As art and practice hath enriched any That we remember: There is our commission, From which we would not have you warp.-Call hither, I say, bid come before us Angelo.— What figure of us think you he will bear? For you must know, we have with special soul Elected him our absence to supply; Lent him our terror, dress'd him with our love; And given his deputation all the organs Of our own power: What think What think you of it? ESCAL. If any in Vienna be of worth To undergo such ample grace and honour, It is lord Angelo. DUKE. Enter ANGELO. Look, where he comes. [Exit an Attendant. ANG. Always obedient to your grace's will, I come to know your pleasure. DUKE. Angelo, There is a kind of character in thy life, That, to the observer, doth thy history Fully unfold: Thyself and thy belongings Are not thine own so proper, as to waste "Then no more remains But that to your sufficiency, as your worth is able, And let them work." It is certainly difficult to extract a clear meaning from this. Steevens proposes to read,— "Then" (says the Duke) "no more remains to say, But your sufficiency as your worth is able, And let them work." In Letourneur's French translation the passage is rendered in this spirit. It is not our purpose to remove obscurities by additions or omissions, and therefore we leave the passage as in the original, excepting a slight alteration in the punctuation. We believe it may be read thus, without much difficulty: "Then, no more remains: (to say on government) But that, (your science) to your sufficiency, (joined to your authority) as your worth (as well as your virtue) is able; (equal to the duty) and let them work (call them into action). a Terms. Blackstone explains this to mean the technical language of the courts, and adds, "An old book called 'Les Termes de la Ley' (written in Henry the Eighth's time) was in Shak- spere's day, and is now, the accidence of young students in the law.” (6 b The commentators have stumbled at this passage. Johnson says, What is there peculiar in this, that a man's life informs the observer of his history?" Monck Mason would correct the passage as follows:- “There is a kind of history in thy life, That to the observer doth thy character Fully unfold." Surely character has here the original meaning of something engraved or inscribed-thy life is thy habits. Angelo was a man of decorum. The Duke afterwards says, "Lord Angelo is precise.” SCENE I.] 347 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. a Thyself upon thy virtues, they ª on thee. Heaven doth with us as we with torches do ; Not light them for themselves: for if our virtues Did not go forth of us, 't were all alike As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touch'd But to fine issues: nor nature never lends The smallest scruple of her excellence, But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines Herself the glory of a creditor, Both thanks and use b. But I do bend my speech To one that can my part in him advertise c; Hold d, therefore, Angelo: In our remove, be thou at full ourself: Mortality and mercy in Vienna Live in thy tongue and hearte: Old Escalus, Though first in question, is thy secondary: Take thy commission. ANG. Now, good my lord, Let there be some more test made of my metal, Before so noble and so great a figure Be stamp'd upon it. DUKE. No more evasion : We have with a leaven'df and prepared choice Proceeded to you; therefore take your honours. Our haste from hence is of so quick condition, That it prefers itself, and leaves unquestion'd Matters of needful value. We shall write to you, As time and our concernings shall importune, How it goes with us; and do look to know What doth befall you here. So, fare you well: To the hopeful execution do I leave you Of your commissions. a They. So the original. In modern editions them, as corrected by Hanmer. But as Angelo might waste himself upon his virtues, they might waste themselves on him. b Use-interest of money. • Alterations have been made and proposed in this passage. Hanmer reads- "To one that can, in my part me advértise.” This is to destroy the sense. My part in him is, my part deputed to him, which he can advertise -direct his attention to-without my speech. d Hold. Tyrwhitt supposes that the Duke here checks himself, Hold therefore; and that the word Angelo begins a new sentence. We have little doubt that the word hold is addressed to Angelo; and used technically in the sense of to have and to hold. Hold, therefore, our power, Angelo. • Douce thus explains this passage:-"I delegate to thy tongue the power of pronouncing sentence of death, and to thy heart the privilege of exercising mercy." f * Leaven'd. As leaven slowly works to impart its quality to bread, so the considerations upon which the Duke made choice of Angelo have gradually fermented in his mind. 348 [ACT I. MEASURE FOR MEASURE. ANG. Yet, give leave, my lord, That we may bring you something on the way. DUKE. My haste may not admit it; Nor need you, on mine honour, have to do With any scruple: your scope is as mine own: So to enforce or qualify the laws As to your soul seems good. Give me your hand; I'll privily away: I love the people, But do not like to stage me to their eyes: Though it do well, I do not relish well Their loud applause, and aves vehement: Nor do I think the man of safe discretion That does affect it. Once more, fare you well. ANG. The heavens give safety to your purposes ! ESCAL. Lead forth, and bring you back in happiness. DUKE. I thank you: Fare you well. ESCAL. I shall desire you, sir, to give me leave To have free speech with you; and it concerns mé To look into the bottom of my place : A power I have; but of what strength and nature I am not yet instructed. ANG. "T is so with me:-Let us withdraw together, And we may soon our satisfaction have Touching that point. [Exit. ESCAL. I'll wait upon your honour. [Exeunt. SCENE II.—A Street. Enter LUCIO and two Gentlemen. LUCIO. If the duke, with the other dukes, come not to composition with the king of Hungary, why, then all the dukes fall upon the king. 1 GENT. Heaven grant us its peace, but not the king of Hungary's! 2 GENT. Amen. LUCIO. Thou concludest like the sanctimonious pirate, that went to sea with the ten commandments, but scraped one out of the table. 2 GENT. Thou shalt not steal? LUCIO. Ay, that he razed. 1 GENT. Why, 't was a commandment to command the captain and all the rest from their functions; they put forth to steal: There's not a soldier of us all, that, in the thanksgiving before meat, doth relish the petition well that prays for peace. 2 GENT. I never heard any soldier dislike it. LUCIO. I believe thee; for I think thou never wast where grace was said. 2 GENT. No? a dozen times at least. SCENE II.] 349 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. 1 GENT. What? in metre¹? LUCIO. In any proportion, or in any language. 1 GENT. I think, or in any religion. LUCIO. Ay! why not? Grace is grace, despite of all controversy: As for exam- ple: Thou thyself art a wicked villain, despite of all grace. 1 GENT. Well, there went but a pair of sheers between us. LUCIO. I grant; as there may between the lists and the velvet: Thou art the list. 1 GENT. And thou the velvet: thou art good velvet; thou 'rt a three-piled piece, I warrant thee: I had as lief be a list of an English kersey, as be piled, as thou art piled, for a French velvet. Do I speak feelingly now? LUCIO. I think thou dost; and, indeed, with most painful feeling of thy speech: I will, out of thine own confession, learn to begin thy health; but, whilst I live, forget to drink after thee. 1 GENT. I think I have done myself wrong; have I not? 2 GENT. Yes, that thou hast; whether thou art tainted or free. LUCIO. Behold, behold, where madam Mitigation comes! I have purchased as many diseases under her roof as come to- 2 GENT. To what, I pray? LUCIO. Judge. 2 GENT. To three thousand dollars a 1 GENT. Ay, and more. LUCIO. A French crown more. a-year. 1 GENT. Thou art always figuring diseases in me: but thou art full of error; I am sound. LUCIO. Nay, not as one would say, healthy; but so sound as things that are hollow thy bones are hollow: impiety has made a feast of thee. Enter Bawd. 1 GENT. How now? Which of your hips has the most profound sciatica? BAWD. Well, well; there's one yonder arrested, and carried to prison, was worth five thousand of you all. 1 GENT. Who's that, I pray thee? BAWD. Marry, sir, that 's Claudio, signior Claudio. 1 GENT. Claudio to prison! 't is not so. BAWD. Nay, but I know 't is so: I saw him arrested; saw him carried away; and, which is more, within these three days his head 's to be chopped off. LUCIO. But, after all this fooling, I would not have it so: Art thou sure of this? BAWD. I am too sure of it; and it is for getting madam Julietta with child. LUCIO. Believe me, this may be: he promised to meet me two hours since; and he was ever precise in promise-keeping. 2 GENT. Besides, you know, it draws something near to the speech we had to such a purpose. 1 GENT. But most of all, agreeing with the proclamation. a Dollars—a quibble upon dolours. 350 [ACT I. MEASURE FOR MEASURE. LUCIO. Away; let 's go learn the truth of it. BAWD. Thus, what with the war, what with the and what with poverty, I am custom-shrunk. with you? Enter Clown. CLO. Yonder man is carried to prison. [Exeunt LUCIO and Gentlemen. sweat, what with the gallows, How now? what's the news BAWD. Well; what has he done? CLO. A woman. BAWD. But what's his offence ? CLO. Groping for trouts in a peculiar river. BAWD. What, is there a maid with child by him? CLO. No; but there's a woman with maid by him: You have not heard of the proclamation, have you? BAWD. What proclamation, man? CLO. All houses in the suburbs of Vienna must be plucked down. BAWD. And what shall become of those in the city? CLO. They shall stand for seed: they had gone down too, but that a wise burgher put in for them. BAWD. But shall all our houses of resort in the suburbs be pulled down? CLO. To the ground, mistress. BAWD. Why, here's a change, indeed, in the commonwealth! What shall be- come of me? CLO. Come; fear not you: good counsellors lack no clients: though you change your place, you need not change your trade; I'll be your tapster still. Courage; there will be pity taken on you: you that have worn your eyes almost out in the service, you will be considered. BAWD. What 's to do here, Thomas Tapster? Let's withdraw. CLO. Here comes signior Claudio, led by the provost to prison: and there's madam Juliet. [Exeunt. SCENE III.-The same Enter Provost, CLAUDIO, JULIET, and Officers; LUCIO and two Gentlemen. CLAUD. Fellow, why dost thou show me thus to the world? Bear me to prison, where I am committed. PRO. I do it not in evil disposition, But from lord Angelo by special charge. CLAUD. Thus can the demi-god, Authority, Make us pay down for our offence by weight b. a Mr. Dyce says, "As there is no change of place here, a new 'Scene' ought not to have been marked." Although there is not a change of "place," there is an entirely new succession of persons. The stage has been wholly vacant. b Το pay down by weight is to pay the full price or penalty. SCENE III.] 351 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. The words of heavenª ;-on whom it will, it will ; On whom it will not, so; yet still 't is just. LUCIO. Why, how now, Claudio? whence comes this restraint? CLAUD. From too much liberty, my Lucio, liberty: As surfeit is the father of much fast, So every scope, by the immoderate use, Turns to restraint: Our natures do pursue (Like rats that ravin' down their proper bane) A thirsty evil, and when we drink, we die. LUCIO. If I could speak so wisely under an arrest, I would send for certain of my creditors: And yet, to say the truth, I had as lief have the foppery of free- с dom as the morality of imprisonment.-What's thy offence, Claudio? CLAUD. What but to speak of would offend again. LUCIO. What! is't murder ? CLAUD. No. LUCIO. Lechery? CLAUD. Call it so. PRO. Away, sir; you must go. CLAUD. One word, good friend :-Lucio, a word with you. LUCIO. A hundred, if they 'll do you any good.- Is lechery so look'd after? CLAUD. Thus stands it with me :-Upon a true contract, I got possession of Julietta's bed; You know the lady; she is fast my wife, Save that we do the denunciation lack Of outward order: this we came not to, Only for propagation of a dower d Remaining in the coffer of her friends; From whom we thought it meet to hide our love, Till time had made them for us. But it chances, The stealth of our most mutual entertainment, With character too gross, is writ on Juliet. Lucro. With child, perhaps? CLAUD. Unhappily, even so. And the new deputy now for the duke,— Whether it be the fault and glimpse of newness; Or whether that the body public be A horse whereon the governor doth ride, Who, newly in the seat, that it may know [Takes him aside. a It has been proposed here to read the swords of heaven. The passage is, however, an allusion to St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, chap. ix. ver. 15. b Ravin-devour greedily. с Morality—in the original mortality. It has been corrected, and properly so as would appear from the context, in the modern editions. d Propagation. The meaning of the passage is evident; but the word appears to be employed with some obscurity. It has been proposed to read prorogation and procuration. 352 [ACT I. MEASURE FOR MEASURE. He can command, lets it straight feel the spur; Whether the tyranny be in his place, Or in his eminence that fills it up, I stagger in:-But this new governor Awakes me all the enrolled penalties, Which have, like unscour'd armour, hung by the wall So long, that nineteen zodiacs have gone round, And none of them been worn; and, for a name, Now puts the drowsy and neglected act Freshly on me :-'t is surely for a name. LUCIO. I warrant, it is: and thy head stands so tickle on thy shoulders, that a milkmaid, if she be in love, may sigh it off. Send after the duke, and ap- peal to him. CLAUD. I have done so, but he 's not to be found. I prithee, Lucio, do me this kind service; This day my sister should the cloister enter, And there receive her approbation ª : a. Acquaint her with the danger of my state; Implore her in my voice, that she make friends To the strict deputy; bid herself assay him; I have great hope in that: for in her youth There is a proneb and speechless dialect, Such as moves men; beside, she hath prosperous art When she will play with reason and discourse, And well she can persuade. Lucio. I pray, she may: as well for the encouragement of the like, which else would stand under grievous imposition; as for the enjoying of thy life, who I would be sorry should be thus foolishly lost at a game of tick-tack. I'll to her. CLAUD. I thank you, good friend Lucio. LUCIO. Within two hours. CLAUD. Come, officer, away. SCENE IV.-A Monastery. Enter DUKE and Friar THOMAS. DUKE. No, holy father; throw away that thought; Believe not that the dribbling dart of love Can pierce a complete bosom: why I desire thee To give me secret harbour, hath a purpose a Approbation-probation. [Exeunt. b Prone. It appears to us that the word is here used in the sense of humble; and not in that of prompt, which Johnson and Malone have suggested. The timidity and silence of her youth alone would move men; but when she chooses to exercise reason and discourse she can well persuade. SCENE IV.] 353 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. FRI. More grave and wrinkled than the aims and ends Of burning youth. May your grace speak of it? DUKE. My holy sir, none better knows than you How I have ever lov'd the life remov'd; And held in idle price to haunt assemblies, Where youth, and cost, and witless bravery keeps". I have deliver'd to lord Angelo (A man of stricture and firm abstinence) My absolute power and place here in Vienna, And he supposes me travell'd to Poland; For so I have strew'd it in the common ear, And so it is receiv'd: Now, pious sir, You will demand of me why I do this? FRI. Gladly, my lord. DUKE. We have strict statutes, and most biting laws, FRI. (The needful bits and curbs to headstrong steeds d,) Which for this fourteen years we have let slipe; Even like an o'ergrown lion in a cave, That goes not out to prey2: Now, as fond fathers Having bound up the threat'ning twigs of birch, Only to stick it in their children's sight, For terror, not to use, in time the rod [Becomes f] more mock'd than fear'd: so our decrees, Dead to infliction, to themselves are dead; And liberty plucks justice by the nose; The baby beats the nurse, and quite athwart Goes all decorum. It rested in your grace To unloose this tied-up justice when you pleas'd: And it in you more dreadful would have seem'd Than in lord Angelo. DUKE. I do fear, too dreadful : Sith 't was my fault to give the people scope, 'T would be my tyranny to strike and gall the m For what I bid them do: For we bid this be done, a And is not found in the original, but is supplied in the second folio. b Keeps-dwells. Stricture-strictness. a Steeds. In the original, weeds. • Slip. The reading of the original has been changed to sleep. Theobald, who, as Mr. Dyce informs us, followed Davenant in this alteration,-(Davenant's The Law against Lovers' being founded on 'Measure for Measure,' and 'Much Ado about Nothing,') made this correction. He thought that it suited the comparison; and that the laws were sleeping like an old lion. The Duke compares himself with the animal " who goes not out to prey." He has let the laws slip. Mr. Collier and Mr. Dyce consider sleep to be the true reading. * Becomes was added by Pope to the original. 354 [ACT I. MEASURE FOR MEASURE. When evil deeds have their permissive pass, And not the punishment. Therefore, indeed, my father, I have on Angelo impos'd the office; Who may, in the ambush of my name, strike home, And yet my nature never in the fight, To do, in slandera: And to behold his sway, I will, as 't were a brother of your order, Visit both prince and people: therefore, I prithee, Supply me with the habit, and instruct me How I may formally in person bear Like a true friar. More reasons for this action, At our more leisure shall I render you ; Only this one :-Lord Angelo is precise; Stands at a guard with envy; scarce confesses That his blood flows, or that his appetite Is more to bread than stone: Hence shall we see, If power change purpose, what our seemers be. [Exeunt. SCENE V.—A Nunnery. Enter ISABELLA and FRANCISCA. ISAB. And have you nuns no further privileges? FRAN. Are not these large enough? ISAB. Yes, truly: I speak not as desiring more; But rather wishing a more strict restraint Upon the sisterhood, the votarists of saint Clare. LUCIO. Ho! Peace be in this place! Who's that which calls? ISAB. FRAN. It is a man's voice: Gentle Isabella, Turn you the key, and know his business of him; You may, When you have vow'd, you must not speak with men, But in the presence of the prioress : I may not; you are yet unsworn: Then, if you speak, you must not show your [Within. face; [Exit FRANCISCA. Or, if you show your face, you must not speak. He calls again; I pray you answer him. ISAB. Peace and prosperity! Who is 't that calls? a We print this as in the original. The passage is ordinarily printed— "And yet, my nature never in the sight To do it slander." The image of a fight was certainly in the poet's mind, from the use of ambush and strike home. We understand by to do, in slander, to be prominent in action, and thus exposed to slander. SCENE V.] 355 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. Enter LUCIO. LUCIO. Hail, virgin, if you be; as those cheek-roses Proclaim you are no less! Can you so stead me, As bring me to the sight of Isabella, A novice of this place, and the fair sister To her unhappy brother Claudio? ISAB. Why her unhappy brother? let me ask; The rather, for I now must make you know I am that Isabella, and his sister. LUCIO. Gentle and fair, your brother kindly greets you: Not to be weary with you, he's in prison. ISAB. Woe me! For what? LUCIO. For that, which if myself might be his judge, He should receive his punishment in thanks: He hath got his friend with child. ISAB. Sir, make me not your story. LUCIO. 'T is true. I would not-though 't is my familiar sin With maids to seem the lapwing, and to jest, Tongue far from heart,-play with all virgins soa: I hold you as a thing ensky'd, and sainted; By your renouncement, an immortal spirit ; And to be talk'd with in sincerity, As with a saint. ISAB. You do blaspheme the good, in mocking me. LUCIO. Do not believe it. Fewness and truth, 't is thus : Your brother and his loverb have embrac'd: As those that feed grow full; as blossoming time, That from the seedness the bare fallow brings To teeming foison; even so her plenteous womb Expresseth his full tilth and husbandry. ISAB. Some one with child by him?-My cousin Juliet? LUCIO. Is she your cousin? ISAB. Adoptedly; as school maids change their names, By vain though apt affection. LUCIO. ISAB. O, let him marry her! LUCIO. She it is. This is the point. a In this passage we follow the original. Malone says that the reading should be thus:- "L Sir, mock me not-your story." But the original meaning is clear enough: make me not your story is, invent me not your story,— a very common phraseology of our author. When Lucio replies 't is true, he means his story is true; he has not invented it; and he adds that he would not jest with her, though jesting be his familiar sin, &c. b Lover-mistress. Shakspere's poem of The Lover's Complaint' is the lament of a deserted maiden. 356 [AOT I. MEASURE FOR MEASURE. The duke is very strangely gone from hence; Bore many gentlemen, myself being one, In hand, and hope of action: but we do learn, By those that know the very nerves of state, His givings out were of an infinite distance From his true-meant design. Upon his place, And with full line of his authority, Governs lord Angelo: a man whose blood Is very snow-broth; one who never feels The wanton stings and motions of the sense; But doth rebate and blunt his natural edge With profits of the mind, study and fast. He (to give fear to use and liberty, Which have, for long, run by the hideous law, As mice by lions) hath pick'd out an act, Under whose heavy sense your brother's life Falls into forfeit: he arrests him on it; And follows close the rigour of the statute, To make him an example; all hope is gone, Unless you have the grace by your fair prayer To soften Angelo: And that's my pith of business "Twixt you and your poor brother. ISAB. Seek his life? LUCIO. Doth he so Hath censur'da him already, And, as I hear, the provost hath a warrant For his execution. ISAB. Alas! what poor Ability 's in me to do him good? LUCIO. Assay the power you have. ISAB. LUCIO. Our doubts are traitors, My power! Alas! I doubt-b And make us lose the good we oft might win, By fearing to attempt: Go to lord Angelo, And let him learn to know, when maidens sue Men give like gods; but when they weep and kneel, All their petitions are as freely theirs As they themselves would owe them. ISAB. I'll see what I can do. LUCIO. ISAB. I will about it straight; But speedily. No longer staying but to give the mother a Censur'd-sentenced. We follow the metrical arrangement of the old copy. SCENE V.] 357 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. Notice of my affair. I humbly thank you: Commend me to my brother: soon at night I'll send him certain word of my success. LUCIO. I take my leave of you. ISAB. Good sir, adieu. [Exeunt. [Scene V.] COMEDIES.-VOL. II. B B [SCENE I. "How now, sir!"] JACKSON. ACT II. SCENE I.—A Hall in Angelo's House. Enter ANGELO, ESCALUS, a Justice, Provost, Officers, and other Attendants. ANG. We must not make a scarecrow of the law, Setting it up to fear the birds of prey, And let it keep one shape, till custom make it a The Provost is here a kind of sheriff-a keeper of prisoners. b To fear to affright. SCENE 1.] 359 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. Their perch, and not their terror. ESCAL. Ay, but yet Let us be keen, and rather cut a little, Than falla, and bruise to death: Alas! this gentleman, Whom I would save, had a most noble father. Let but your honour know, (Whom I believe to be most straight in virtue,) That, in the working of your own affections, Had time coher'd with place, or place with wishing, Or that the resolute acting of our blood b Could have attain'd the effect of your own purpose, Whether you had not sometime in your life Err'd in this point which now you censure him, And pull'd the law upon you. ANG. "T is one thing to be tempted, Escalus, Another thing to fall. I not deny, The jury, passing on the prisoner's life, May, in the sworn twelve, have a thief or two Guiltier than him they try: What's open made To justice, that justice seizes. What know the laws, That thieves do pass ond thieves? 'Tis very pregnant, The jewel that we find we stoop and take it, Because we see it; but what we do not see We tread upon, and never think of it. You may not so extenuate his offence, Fore I have had such faults; but rather tell me When I, that censure him, do so offend, Let mine own judgment pattern out my death, And nothing come in partial. Sir, he must die. ESCAL. Be it as your wisdom will. ANG. Where is the provost? PROV. Here, if it like your honour. ANG. See that Claudio Be executed by nine to-morrow morning : Bring him his confessor, let him be prepar'd; For that 's the utmost of his pilgrimage. ESCAL. Well, heaven forgive him! and forgive us all! Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall: [Exit Provost. a Fall. The verb is here used actively. We still say to fall a tree; and probably Shakspere had this image in his mind. b Our blood. The original has our; the common reading is your. Our blood may mean, nature-the nature of man. с In the elliptical construction of this sentence we must understand for after censure him. our a Pass on-condemn-adjudicate. We have the same expression in a contemporary play: "A jury of brokers, impanelled and deeply sworn to pass on all villains." For-because. BB 2 360 [ACT 11. MEASURE FOR MEASURE. Some run from brakes of ice, and answer nonea; And some condemned for a fault alone. Enter ELBOW, FROTH, Clown, Officers, dc. ELB. Come, bring them away: if these be good people in a commonweal that do nothing but use their abuses in common houses, I know no law; bring them away. ANG. How now, sir! What's your name? and what's the matter? ELB. If it please your honour, I am the poor duke's constable, and my name is Elbow; I do lean upon justice, sir, and do bring in here before your good. honour two notorious benefactors. ANG. Benefactors? Well; what benefactors are they? are they not malefactors? ELB. If it please your honour, I know not well what they are: but precise villains they are, that I am sure of; and void of all profanation in the world, that good christians ought to have. ESCAL. This comes off well; here's a wise officer. ANG. Go to: What quality are they of? Elbow is your name? Why dost thou not speak, Elbow ? CLO. He cannot, sir; he's out at elbow. ANG. What are you, sir? ELB. He, sir? a tapster, sir; parcel-bawd; one that serves a bad woman; whose house, sir, was, as they say, plucked down in the suburbs; and now she pro- fesses a hot-house, which, I think, is a very ill house too. ESCAL. How know you that? ELB. My wife, sir, whom I detest before heaven and your honour,- ESCAL. HOW! thy wife? ELB. Ay, sir; whom, I thank heaven, is an honest woman, ESCAL. Dost thou detest her therefore? ELB. I say, sir, I will detest myself also, as well as she, that this house, if it be not a bawd's house, it is pity of her life, for it is a naughty house. ESCAL. How dost thou know that, constable ? ELB. Marry, sir, by my wife; who, if she had been a woman cardinally given, might have been accused in fornication, adultery, and all uncleanliness there. a We print this passage as in the original. It is usually given brakes of vice. Steevens supports the emendation in two ways: first, that a brake is an instrument of torture. Holinshed, describing the rack in the Tower known by the name of the Duke of Exeter's daughter, calls it the brake. Secondly, brakes of vice may mean a thicket of vices. Letourneur translates the passage thus:-" Il en est qui ont tous les vices, et qui ne répondent d'aucun; d'autres sont con- damnés pour une faute unique." Mr. Dyce holds that "brakes of vice" is the true reading. Those who would preserve the old reading consider that brakes of ice are fractures of ice-ice that breaks; and Tieck so translates the passage. The original has not breaks, however, but brakes. The line is certainly full of difficulties. The verb run would lead one to believe in the correctness of the old reading; whilst, on the other hand, the employment of answer in a peculiar sense-the answer to the question enforced by torture-would lead one to believe that the interpretation of brakes as racks is correct. SCENE I.] 361 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. ESCAL. By the woman's means? ELB. Ay, sir, by mistress Overdone's means: but as she spit in his face, so she defied him. CLO. Sir, if it please your honour, this is not so. ELB. Prove it before these varlets here, thou honourable man, prove it. ESCAL. Do you hear how he misplaces? [TO ANGELO. CLO. Sir, she came in great with child; and longing (saving your honour's reverence) for stewed prunes; sir, we had but two in the house, which at that very distant time stood, as it were, in a fruit-dish, a dish of some three- pence; your honours have seen such dishes; they are not China dishes, but very good dishes ³. 3 ESCAL. Go to, go to; no matter for the dish, sir. CLO. No, indeed, sir, not of a pin; you are therein in the right: but, to the point: As I say, this mistress Elbow, being, as I say, with child, and being great bellied, and longing, as I said, for prunes; and having but two in the dish, as I said, master Froth here, this very man, having eaten the rest, as I said, and, as I say, paying for them very honestly;-for, as you know, master Froth, I could not give you three-pence again FROTH. No, indeed. CLO. Very well you being then, if you be remembered, cracking the stones of the foresaid prunes. FROTH. Ay, So I did, indeed. CLO. Why, very well: I telling you then, if you be remembered, that such a one, and such a one, were past cure of the thing you wot of, unless they kept very good diet, as I told you. FROTH. All this is true. CLO. Why, very well then. ESCAL. Come, you are a tedious fool to the purpose.-What was done to Elbow's wife, that he hath cause to complain of? Come me to what was done to her. CLO. Sir, your honour cannot come to that yet. ESCAL. No, sir, nor I mean it not. CLO. Sir, but you shall come to it, by your honour's leave: And, I beseech you, look into master Froth here, sir; a man of fourscore pound a-year; whose father died at Hallowmas :-Was 't not at Hallowmas, master Froth? FROTH. All-hallownd eve. CLO. Why, very well; I hope here be truths: He, sir, sitting, as I say, in a lower chair, sir;—'t was in the Bunch of Grapes, where, indeed, you have a delight to sit Have you not? FROTH. I have so; because it is an open roomª, and good for winter. CLO. Why, very well then ;-I hope here be truths. a Open room. This has been explained as a warm room, from the same root as oven. But oven, if Tooke's interpretation be correct, means a place heaved, raised up. We rather think that open has here nothing to do with the winter quality of the room, but that it means a common room, which is also a warm room. 362 [ACT II. MEASURE FOR MEASURE. ANG. This will last out a night in Russia, When nights are longest there: I'll take my leave, And leave you to the hearing of the cause; Hoping you'll find good cause to whip them all. ESCAL. I think no less: Good morrow to your lordship. [Exit ANGELO. Now, sir, come on: What was done to Elbow's wife, once more? CLO. Once, sir? there was nothing done to her once. ELB. I beseech you, sir, ask him what this man did to my wife. CLO. I beseech your honour, ask me. ESCAL. Well, sir: what did this gentleman to her? CLO. I beseech you, sir, look in this gentleman's face:-Good master Froth, look upon his honour; 't is for a good purpose: Doth your honour mark his face? ESCAL. Ay, sir, very well. CLO. Nay, I beseech you, mark it well. ESCAL. Well, I do so. CLO. Doth your honour see any harm in his face? ESCAL. Why, no. CLO. I'll be supposed upon a book, his face is the worst thing about him: Good then; if his face be the worst thing about him, how could master Froth do the constable's wife any harm? I would know that of your honour. ESCAL. He's in the right: Constable, what say you to it? ELB. First, an it like you, the house is a respected house; next, this is a respected fellow; and his mistress is a respected woman. CLO. By this hand, sir, his wife is a more respected person than any of us all. ELB. Varlet, thou liest; thou liest, wicked varlet: the time is yet to come that she was ever respected, with man, woman, or child. CLO. Sir, she was respected with him before he married with her. ESCAL. Which is the wiser here? Justice or Iniquity?—Is this true? ELB. O thou caitiff! O thou varlet! O thou wicked Hannibal! I respected with her, before I was married to her! If ever I was respected with her, or she with me, let not your worship think me the poor duke's officer:- Prove this, thou wicked Hannibal, or I'll have mine action of battery on thee. ESCAL. If he took you a box o' th' ear, you might have your action of slander too. ELB. Marry, I thank your good worship for it: What is 't your worship's pleasure I should do with this wicked caitiff? ESCAL. Truly, officer, because he hath some offences in him that thou wouldst discover if thou couldst, let him continue in his courses till thou know'st what they are. ELB. Marry, I thank your worship for it :-Thou seest, thou wicked varlet now, what's come upon thee; thou art to continue now, thou varlet; thou art to continue. ESCAL. Where were you born, friend? [TO FROTH. SCENE I.] 363 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. FROTH. Here in Vienna, sir. ESCAL. Are you of fourscore pounds a-year ? FROTH. Yes, an 't please you, sir. ESCAL. So.-What trade are you of, sir? CLO. A tapster; a poor widow's tapster. ESCAL. Your mistress's name? CLO. Mistress Overdone. ESCAL. Hath she had any more than one husband? CLO. Nine, sir; Over-done by the last. ESCAL. Nine!-Come hither to me, master Froth. [To the Clown. Master Froth, I would not have you acquainted with tapsters: they will draw you, master Froth, and you will hang them: Get you gone, and let me hear no more of you. FROTH. I thank your worship: For mine own part, I never come into any room in a taphouse, but I am drawn in. ESCAL. Well, no more of it, master Froth: farewell. [Exit FROTH.]-Come you hither to me, master tapster; what 's your name, master tapster? CLO. Pompey. ESCAL. What else? CLO. Bum, sir. ESCAL. "Troth, and your bum is the greatest thing about you; so that, in the beastliest sense, you are Pompey the great. Pompey, you are partly a bawd, Pompey, howsoever you colour it in being a tapster. Are you not? come, tell me true; it shall be the better for you. CLO. Truly, sir, I am a poor fellow that would live. ESCAL. How would you live, Pompey? by being a bawd? What do you think of the trade, Pompey? is it a lawful trade? CLO. If the law would allow it, sir. ESCAL. But the law will not allow it, Pompey: nor it shall not be allowed in Vienna. CLO. Does your worship mean to geld and splaya all the youth of the city? ESCAL. No, Pompey. CLO. Truly, sir, in my poor opinion, they will to 't then: If your worship will take order for the drabs and the knaves, you need not to fear the bawds. ESCAL. There are pretty orders beginning, I can tell you: It is but heading and hanging. CLO. If you head and hang all that offend that way but for ten year together, you'll be glad to give out a commission for more heads. If this law hold in Vienna ten year, I'll rent the fairest house in it after three-pence a bay: If you live to see this come to pass, say, Pompey told you so. ESCAL. Thank you, good Pompey: and, in requital of your prophecy, hark you, -I advise you, let me not find you before me again upon any complaint whatsoever, no, not for dwelling where you do; if I do, Pompey, I shall beat you to your tent, and prove a shrewd Cæsar to you; in plain deal- a Splay. Used in Chapman's Homer and Holland's Pliny. 364 [AOT II. MEASURE FOR MEASURE. ing, Pompey, I shall have you whipped: so for this time, Pompey, fare you well. CLO. I thank your worship for your good counsel; but I shall follow it as the flesh and fortune shall better determine. Whip me? No, no; let carman whip his jade; The valiant heart 's not whipp'd out of his trade. [Exit. ESCAL. Come hither to me, master Elbow; come hither, master constable. How long have you been in this place of constable ? ELB. Seven year and a half, sir. a ESCAL. I thought, by your readiness in the office, you had continued in it some time: You say, seven years together? ELB. And a half, sir. ESCAL. Alas! it hath been great pains to you! They do you wrong to put you so oft upon 't: Are there not men in your ward sufficient to serve it? ELB. Faith, sir, few of any wit in such matters: as they are chosen, they are glad to choose me for them; I do it for some piece of money, and go through with all. ESCAL. Look you bring me in the names of some six or seven, the most sufficient of your parish. ELB. To your worship's house, sir? ESCAL. To my house: Fare you well. [Exit ELBOW.] What 's o'clock, think you? JUST. Eleven, sir. ESCAL. I pray you home to dinner with me. JUST. I humbly thank you. ESCAL. It grieves me for the death of Claudio; But there 's no remedy. JUST. Lord Angelo is severe. ESCAL. It is but needful: Mercy is not itself, that oft looks so ; Pardon is still the nurse of second woe: But yet,-Poor Claudio !—There is no remedy. Come, sir. [Exeunt. SCENE II.-Another Room in the same. Enter Provost and a Servant. SERV. He's hearing of a cause; he will come straight. I'll tell him of you. PROV. Pray you do. [Exit Servant.] I'll know His pleasure; may be, he will relent: Alas, a Your. The original has the. SCENE II.] 365 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. He hath but as offended in a dream! All sects, all ages, smack of this vice; and he To die for 't— ANG. Enter ANGELO. Now, what's the matter, provost ? PROV. Is it your will Claudio shall die to-morrow? ANG. Did not I tell thee, yea? hadst thou not order? Why dost thou ask again? PROV. Lest I might be too rash: Under your good correction, I have seen, When, after execution, judgment hath Repented o'er his doom. ANG. Go to; let that be mine : Do you your office, or give up your place, And you shall well be spar'd. PROV. I crave your honour's pardon.- What shall be done, sir, with the groaning Juliet? She 's very near her hour. ANG. Dispose of her To some more fitter place; and that with speed. Re-enter Servant. SERV. Here is the sister of the man condemn'd, ANG. Desires access to you. Hath he a sister? PROV. Ay, my good lord; a very virtuous maid, ANG. And to be shortly of a sisterhood, If not already. Well, let her be admitted. See you, the fornicatress be remov'd; Let her have needful, but not lavish, means; There shall be order for it. Enter LUCIO and ISABELLA. [Exit Servant. PROV. Save your honour! [Offering to retire. ANG. Stay a little while.-[To ISAB.] You are welcome: What's your will? ISAB. I am a woeful suitor to your honour, Please but your honour hear me. Well: what's your suit? ANG. ISAB. There is a vice that most I do abhor, And most desire should meet the blow of justice; For which I would not plead, but that I must; For which I must not plead, but that I am At war, 'twixt will, and will not. 366 LACT II. MEASURE FOR MEASURE. ANG. Well; the matter? ISAB. I have a brother is condemn'd to die: I do beseech you, let it be his fault, And not my brother. PROV. Heaven give thee moving graces! ANG. Condemn the fault, and not the actor of it? Why, every fault 's condemn'd, ere it be done: Mine were the very cipher of a function, To fine a the faults, whose fine stands in record, And let go by the actor. ISAB. O just, but severe law! I had a brother then.-Heaven keep your honour! LUCIO. [TO ISAB.] Give 't not o'er so: to him again, entreat him; Kneel down before him, hang upon his gown; You are too cold: if you should need a pin, You could not with more tame a tongue desire it : To him, I say. ISAB. Must he needs die? ANG. Maiden, no remedy. ISAB. Yes; I do think that you might pardon him, And neither heaven, nor man, grieve at the mercy. ANG. I will not do 't. ISAB. But can you, if you would? ANG. Look, what I will not that I cannot do. ISAB. But might you do 't, and do the world no wrong, If so your heart were touch'd with that remorse As mine is to him? ANG. He's sentenc'd; 't is too late LUCIO. You are too cold. ISAB. Too late? why, no; I, that do speak a word, May call it back again: Well believe this", No ceremony that to great ones 'longs, Not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword, The marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe, Become them with one half so good a grace As mercy does. ANG. If he had been as you, and you as he, You would have slipp'd like him; but he, like you, Would not have been so stern. Pray you, begone. ISAB. I would to heaven I had your potency, [Retiring. [To ISABELLA. a To fine. So the original. The ordinary reading is to find. To fine is to sentence—to bring to an end. b Well believe this-be well assured of this. The folio of 1623 omits back, which is inserted in that of 1632. SCENE II.] 367 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. • And you were Isabel! should it then be thus? No; I would tell what 't were to be a judge, And what a prisoner. LUCIO. Ay, touch him; there's the vein. ANG. Your brother is a forfeit of the law, And you but waste your words. ISAB. Alas! alas! Why, all the souls that were, were forfeit once ; And He that might the vantage best have took Found out the remedy: How would you be, If He, which is the top of judgment, should But judge you as you are? O, think on that; And mercy then will breathe within your lips, Like man new made". ANG. Be you content, fair maid; It is the law, not I, condemns your brother: Were he my kinsman, brother, or my son, It should be thus with him ;-he must die to-morrow. ISAB. To-morrow? O, that 's sudden! He's not prepar'd for death! Spare him, spare him : Even for our kitchens We kill the fowl of season b: shall we serve heaven With less respect than we do minister To our gross selves? Good, good my lord, bethink you : Who is it that hath died for this offence? There's many have committed it. LUCIO. Ay, well said. ANG. The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept: Those many had not dar'd to do that evil, If the first that did the edict infringe Had answer'd for his deed; now, 't is awake; Takes note of what is done; and, like a prophet, Looks in a glass, that shows what future evils (Either now, or by remissness new-conceiv'd, And so in progress to be hatch'd and born) Are now to have no successive degrees, But, where they live, to end. ISAB. d Yet show some pity. ANG. I show it most of all, when I show justice; [Aside. a This is explained by Malone,-" You will then appear as tender-hearted and merciful as the first man was in his days of innocence, immediately after his creation." Is it not rather with reference to the fine allusion to the redemption which has gone before? Think on that, and you will then be as merciful as a man regenerate. b The fowl of season-when in season. • We print this line as in the original. The ordinary reading is, if the first man. sary retardation of the original adds to the force of the line. d Where. The original has here. The neces- 368 [ACT II. MEASURE FOR MEASURE. For then I pity those I do not know, Which a dismiss'd offence would after gall; And do him right, that, answering one foul wrong, Lives not to act another. Be satisfied; Your brother dies to-morrow; be content. ISAB. So you must be the first that gives this sentence; And he, that suffers: O, it is excellent To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous To use it like a giant. LUCIO. That 's well said. ISAB. Could great men thunder As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet, For every pelting, petty officer Would use his heaven for thunder: nothing but thunder. Merciful heaven! Thou rather, with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt, Splitt'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak, Than the soft myrtle: But man, proud mana! Dress'd in a little brief authority; Most ignorant of what he's most assur'd, His glassy essence,—like an angry ape, Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven, As make the angels weep: who, with our spleens, Would all themselves laugh mortal Þ. LUCIO. O, to him, to him, wench: he will relent; He's coming, I perceive 't. Pray heaven, she win him! PROV. ISAB. We cannot weigh our brother with ourself: Great men may jest with saints: 't is wit in them; But, in the less, foul profanation. LUCIO. Thou 'rt in the right, girl; more o' that. ISAB. That in the captain 's but a choleric word, Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy. LUCIO. Art avis'd o' that? more on 't. ANG. Why do you put these sayings upon me? ISAB. Because authority, though it err like others, Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself, That skins the vice o' the top: Go to your bosom ; Knock there; and ask your heart, what it doth know That's like my brother's fault: if it confess A natural guiltiness, such as is his, a The editor of the second folio reads, O! but man, proud man. How much more emphatic is the passage without the 0, making the pause after myrtle! b We understand this passage,-as they are angels, they weep at folly; if they had our spleens, they would laugh, as mortals. SCENE II.] 369 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue Against my brother's life. ANG. She speaks, and 't is Such sense, that my sense breeds with it.-Fare you well. ISAB. Gentle my lord, turn back. ANG. I will bethink me:-Come again to-morrow. ISAB. Hark, how I 'll bribe you: Good my lord, turn back. ANG. HOW! bribe me? ISAB. Ay, with such gifts that heaven shall share with you. LUCIO. You had marr'd all else. ISAB. Not with fond shekels of the tested gold, Or stones, whose rates are either rich or poor As fancy values them; but with true prayers, That shall be up at heaven, and enter there, Ere sunrise prayers from preserved souls, From fasting maids, whose minds are dedicate To nothing temporal. ANG. Well: come to me to-morrow. LUCIO. Go to: 't is well; away. ISAB. Heaven keep your honour safe! ANG. For I am that way going to temptation, Where prayers crossa. ISAB. Amen: [Aside to ISABEL. [Aside. At what hour to-morrow Shall I attend your lordship? At any time 'fore noon. ISAB. Save your honour! ANG. [Exeunt LUCIO, ISABELLA, and Provost. ANG. From thee; even from thy virtue !— What's this? what's this? Is this her fault, or mine? The tempter or the tempted, who sins most? Ha! Not she; nor doth she tempt: but it is I, That lying by the violet, in the sun, Do, as the carrion does, not as the flower, Corrupt with virtuous season. Can it be, That modesty may more betray our sense Than woman's lightness? Having waste ground enough, Shall we desire to raze the sanctuary, b And pitch our evils there? O, fie, fie, fie! a We believe Tyrwhitt's explanation of this passage is the true one. He quotes the following lines from The Merchant of Venice,' Act III., Scene 1:- "SAL. I would it might prove the end of his losses." SOLA. Let me say Amen betimes, lest the Devil cross thy prayer.” And he adds, " For the same reason Angelo seems to say Amen to Isabella's prayer." Evils has here a peculiar signification. The desecration which is thus expressed may be un- derstood from a passage in 2 Kings, chapter x., verse 27: "And they brake down the image of Baal, and brake down the house of Baal, and made it a draught house unto this day." 370 [ACT II. MEASURE FOR MEASURE. What dost thou? or what art thou, Angelo? Dost thou desire her foully, for those things That make her good? O, let her brother live: Thieves for their robbery have authority, When judges steal themselves. What? do I love her, That I desire to hear her speak again, And feast upon her eyes? What is 't I dream on? O cunning enemy, that, to catch a saint, With saints dost bait thy hook! Most dangerous Is that temptation, that doth goad us on To sin in loving virtue: never could the strumpet, With all her double vigour, art, and nature, Once stir my temper; but this virtuous maid Subdues me quite :-Ever till now, When men were fond, I smil'd and wonder'd how. SCENE III.—A Room in a Prison. Enter DUKE, habited like a Friar, and Provost. DUKE. Hail to you, provost! so I think you are. PROV. I am the provost : What's your will, good friar? DUKE. Bound by my charity, and my bless'd order, I come to visit the afflicted spirits Here in the prison: do me the common right To let me see them; and to make me know The nature of their crimes, that I may minister To them accordingly. PROV. I would do more than that if more were needful. Enter JULIET. [Exit. Look, here comes one; a gentlewoman of mine, Who, falling in the flaws of her own youth, ■ Flaws. So the original. The ordinary reading, that of Warburton, is flames, which he adopts to preserve "the integrity of the metaphor." Shakspere, in the superabundance of his thought, makes one metaphor run into another; and thus Juliet may yield to the flaws-storms-of her own youth, and so blister her reputation. Steevens says, "Blister seems to have reference to the flames mentioned in the preceding line. A similar use of this word occurs in Hamlet:'- takes the rose From the fair forehead of an innocent love, And sets a blister there.'" The passage which he quotes to defend the reading of flames makes against it. The blister suc- ceeds the rose, without any previous burning. SCENE III.] 371 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. Hath blister'd her report: She is with child; And he that got it, sentenc'd: a young man More fit to do another such offence, Than die for this. DUKE. When must he die? PROV. As I do think, to-morrow. I have provided for you; stay a while, And you shall be conducted. DUKE. Repent you, fair one, of the sin you carry? JULIET. I do; and bear the shame most patiently. DUKE. I'll teach you how you shall arraign your conscience, And try your penitence, if it be sound, Or hollowly put on. JULIET. I'll gladly learn. DUKE. Love you the man that wrong'd you? JULIET. Yes, as I love the woman that wrong'd him. DUKE. So then, it seems, your most offenceful act Was mutually committed? JULIET. Mutually. DUKE. Then was your sin of heavier kind than his. JULIET. I do confess it, and repent it, father. DUKE. 'Tis meet so, daughter: but lest you do repent, As that the sin hath brought you to this shame,— Which sorrow is always towards ourselves, not heaven; Showing, we would not spare heaven, as we love it, But as we stand in fear,- JULIET. I do repent me, as it is an evil; And take the shame with joy. DUKE. There rest. Your partner, as I hear, must die to-morrow, And I am going with instruction to him.- Grace go with you! Benedicite! JULIET. Must die to-morrow! O, injurious love, That respites me a life, whose very comfort Is still a dying horror! [To JULIET. [Exit. PROV. 'Tis pity of him. [Exeunt. a Lest. The original has least. Mr. Collier, who adopts and explains the reading of least, over- looks the circumstance that in the next Act, in the line, "Lest thou a feverous life should entertain," the original has also least; for which Mr. Collier substitutes lest without explanation. 372 [ACT II. MEASURE FOR MEASURE. SCENE IV.—A Room in Angelo's House. Enter ANGELO. ANG. When I would pray and think, I think and pray To several subjects: heaven hath my empty words: Whilst my invention, hearing not my tongue, Anchors on Isabel: Heaven in my mouth, As if I did but only chew his name; And in my heart, the strong and swelling evil Of my conception: The state whereon I studied Is like a good thing, being often read, Grown fear'd and tedious; yea, my gravity, Wherein (let no man hear me) I take pride, Could I, with boot, change for an idle plume, Which the air beats for vain. O place! O form! How often dost thou with thy cased, thy habit, Wrench awe from fools, and tie the wiser souls To thy false seeming! Blood, thou art bloode: Let's write good angel on the devil's horn, 'Tis not the devil's crestf. How now, who's there? SERV. Desires access to you. ANG. Teach her the way. Enter Servant. One Isabel, a sister, O heavens ! [Exit Servant. Why does my blood thus muster to my heart, Making both it unable for itself, And dispossessing all my other parts Of necessary fitness? So play the foolish throngs with one that swoons; Come all to help him, and so stop the air By which he should revive: and even so The generals, subject to a well-wish'd king, a Invention-imagination. b Fear'd. So all the original copies, except one, in which the ƒ looks like (the long s). This action of the press in wearing the ƒ into ƒ rendered the modern change to the short s very useful. • Boot-advantage. d Case-outside. • So the original. The ordinary reading is, Blood, thou still art blood. What- f A crest was emblematical of some quality in the wearer, such as his ancestral name. ever legend we put on it, the crest is typical of the person. The "devil's horn" is the "devil's crest;" but if we write "good angel" on it, the emblem is overlooked in the "false seeming." • The general—the people. SCENE IV.] 373 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. Quit their own part, and in obsequious fondness Crowd to his presence, where their untaught love Must needs appear offence. How now, fair maid? ISAB. Enter ISABElla. I am come to know your pleasure. ANG. That you might know it would much better please me, Than to demand what 't is. Your brother cannot live. ISAB. Even so.-Heaven keep your honour! ANG. Yet may he live a while; and, it may be, As long as you, or I: yet he must die. ISAB. Under your sentence? ANG. Yea. ISAB. When, I beseech you? that in his reprieve, Longer, or shorter, he may be so fitted, That his soul sicken not. ANG. Ha! Fie, these filthy vices! It were as good To pardon him that hath from nature stolen A man already made, as to remit Their saucy sweetness, that do coin heaven's image In stamps that are forbid: 't is all as easy Falsely to take away a life true made, As to put mettle in restrained means, To make a false one. ISAB. 'Tis set down so in heaven, but not in earth. ANG. Say you so? then I shall pose you quickly. Which had you rather, That the most just law Now took your brother's life; orª, to redeem hin, Give up your body to such sweet uncleanness, As she that he hath stain'd? ISAB. Sir, believe this, I had rather give my body than my soul. ANG. I talk not of your soul: Our compell'd sins Stand more for number than for accompt. ISAB. How say you? ANG. Nay, I'll not warrant that; for I can speak Against the thing I say. Answer to this;- I, now the voice of the recorded law, Pronounce a sentence on your brother's life: Might there not be a charity in sin, To save this brother's life? ISAB. COMEDIES.-VOL. II. Please you to do 't, a Or. The original has and. [Retiring. C C 374 [ACT II. MEASURE FOR MEASURE. I'll take it as a peril to my soul, It is no sin at all, but charity. ANG. Pleas'd you to do 't, at peril of your soul, Were equal poise of sin and charity. ISAB. That I do beg his life, if it be sin, Heaven, let me bear it! you granting of my suit, If that be sin, I 'll make it my morn prayer To have it added to the faults of mine, And nothing of your answera. ANG. Nay, but hear me: Your sense pursues not mine: either you are ignorant, Or seem so, craftily; and that's not good. ISAB. Let me be ignorant, and in nothing good, But graciously to know I am no better. ANG. Thus wisdom wishes to appear most bright, When it doth tax itself: as these black masks Proclaim an enshield beauty ten times louder Than beauty could, displayed.-But mark me; To be received plain, I'll speak more gross: Your brother is to die. ISAB. So. ANG. And his offence is so, as it appears, Accountant to the law upon that pain. ISAB. True. ANG. Admit no other way to save his life, (As I subscribe not that, nor any other, But in the loss of question,) that you, his sister, Finding yourself desir'd of such a person, Whose credit with the judge, or own great place, Could fetch your brother from the manacles C Of the all-binding law; and that there were No earthly mean to save him, but that either You must lay down the treasures of your body To this suppos'd, or else to let him suffer; What would you do? ISAB. As much for my poor brother as myself: That is, Were I under the terms of death, The impression of keen whips I'd wear as rubies, And strip myself to death, as to a bed That longing had been sick forª, ere I'd yield a Your answer-for you to answer. b Craftily. The original has crafty. C All-binding. The original has all-building. This has been silently changed into the Longing is clearly a substantive,—desire; d The original has "that longing have been sick for." ordinary reading, “that longing I have been sick for." and we venture therefore to make the alteration in the tense. SCENE IV.] 375 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. My body up to shame. ANG. Then must your brother die. ISAB. And 't were the cheaper way: Better it were a brother died at once, Than that a sister, by redeeming him, Should die for ever. ANG. Were not you then as cruel as the sentence That you have slander'd so? ISAB. Ignomy in ransom, and free pardon, Are of two houses: lawful mercy Is nothing kin to foul redemption. ANG. You seem'd of late to make the law a tyrant; And rather prov'd the sliding of your brother A merriment, than a vice. ISAB. O, pardon me, my lord; it oft falls out, To have what we would have, we speak not what we mean: I something do excuse the thing I hate, For his advantage that I dearly love. ANG. We are all frail. ISAB. If not a feodary, but only he Else let my brother die, Nay, women are frail too. Owe, and succeed thy weakness ª. ANG. ISAB. Ay, as the glasses where they view themselves; Which are as easy broke as they make forms. Women!-Help heaven! men their creation mar In profiting by them. Nay, call us ten times frail; For we are soft as our complexions are, ANG. And credulous to false prints. I think it well: And from this testimony of your own sex, (Since, I suppose, we are made to be no stronger Than faults may shake our frames,) let me be bold;— I do arrest your words: Be that you are, That is, a woman; if you be more, you 're none; If you be one, (as you are well express'd By all external warrants,) show it now, By putting on the destin'd livery. "We a This passage is exceedingly difficult; but its obscurity is not lessened by the change which has been adopted by modern editors, "Owe, and succeed by weakness." When Angelo says, are all frail," he makes a confession of his own frailty, and of that particular frailty of which, from the tenor of what has preceded, Isabella begins to suspect him. She answers, otherwise let my brother die, if we be not all frail-if he be not a feodary,—one holding by the same tenure as the rest of mankind,—and only he be found to own and succeed thy weakness, which thou hast confessed by implication. cc 2 376 [ACT II. MEASURE FOR MEASURE. ISAB. I have no tongue but one: gentle my lord, Let me entreat you speak the former language. ANG. Plainly conceive, I love you. ISAB. My brother did love Juliet; and That he shall die for it. you tell me ANG. He shall not, Isabel, if you give me love. ISAB. I know, your virtue hath a licence in 't, Which seems a little fouler than it is, ANG. To pluck on others. Believe me, on mine honour, My words express my purpose. ISAB. Ha! little honour to be much believ'd, ANG. And most pernicious purpose!-Seeming, seeming!- I will proclaim thee, Angelo; look for 't: Sign me a present pardon for my brother, Or, with an outstretch'd throat, I'll tell the world aloud, What man thou art. Who will believe thee, Isabel? My unsoil'd name, the austereness of my life, My vouch against you, and my place i' the state, Will so your accusation overweigh, That you shall stifle in your own report, And smell of calumny. I have begun; And now I give my sensual race the rein: Fit thy consent to my sharp appetite; Lay by all nicety, and prolixious blushes, That banish what they sue for; redeem thy brother By yielding up thy body to my will; Or else he must not only die the death, But thy unkindness shall his death draw out To lingering sufferance: answer me to-morrow, Or, by the affection that now guides me most, I'll prove a tyrant to him: As for you, Say what you can, my false o'erweighs your true. ISAB. To whom should I complain? Did I tell this, Who would believe me? O perilous mouths, That bear in them one and the self-same tongue, Either of condemnation or approof! Bidding the law make court'sy to their will; Hooking both right and wrong to the appetite, To follow as it draws! I'll to my brother: Though he hath fallen by prompture of the blood, Yet hath he in him such a mind of honour, a a Prompture-suggestion. [Exit. SCENE IV.] 377 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. That had he twenty heads to tender down On twenty bloody blocks, he 'd yield them up, Before his sister should her body stoop To such abhorr'd pollution. Then, Isabel, live chaste, and, brother, die: More than our brother is our chastity. I'll tell him yet of Angelo's request, And fit his mind to death, for his soul's rest. Exit. GRAY. [SCENE II. Thy sharp and sulphurous bolt."} J.JACKSON F [SCENE II. Street before the Prison.] ACT III. SCENE I.-A Room in the Prison. Enter DUKE, CLAUDIO, and Provost. DUKE. So, then, you hope of pardon from lord Angelo? CLAUD. The miserable have no other medicine, But only hope: I hope to live, and am prepar'd to die. DUKE. Be absolute for death; either death, or life, Shall thereby be the sweeter. Reason thus with life : If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing SCENE I.] 379 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. a That none but fools would keep a breath thou art, (Servile to all the skiey influences,) b That dost this habitation, where thou keep'st, Hourly afflict: merely, thou art death's fool+; For him thou labour'st by thy flight to shun, And yet runn'st toward him still: Thou art not noble; For all the accommodations that thou bear'st, Are nurs'd by baseness: Thou art by no means valiant ; For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork Of a poor worm: Thy best of rest is sleep, And that thou oft provok'st; yet grossly fear'st Thy death, which is no more. Thou art not thyself; For thou exist'st on many a thousand grains That issue out of dust: Happy thou art not: For what thou hast not still thou striv'st to get; And what thou hast, forgett'st: Thou art not certain; For thy complexion shifts to strange effects, After the moon: If thou art rich, thou art poor; For, like an ass whose back with ingots bows, Thou bear'st thy heavy riches but a journey, And death unloads thee: Friend hast thou none; For thine own bowels, which do call thee sire, The mere effusion of thy proper loins, Do curse the gout, serpigo, and the rheum, For ending thee no sooner: Thou hast nor youth, nor age; But, as it were, an after-dinner's sleep, Dreaming on both for all thy blessed youth Becomes as aged 5, and doth beg the alms Of palsied elda; and when thou art old, and rich, Keep. Warburton says, "The sense of the lines in this reading is a direct persuasive to suicide;" and he proposes to read reck-care for. It happens that keep was anciently used in this very sense. In Wiclif's translation of the Bible, the fortieth verse of the tenth chapter of St. Luke is thus rendered: "And she stood, and said, Lord, takest thou no keep that my sister hath left me alone to serve ?" In the authorised version the word care is substituted for keep. b Dost. Hanmer improperly changed the old reading to do; conceiving that "skiey influ- ences" was the nominative case. Porson restored the proper reading. • Johnson says, "Worm is put for any creeping thing or serpent. Shakspeare supposes falsely, but according to the vulgar notion, that a serpent wounds with his tongue, and that his tongue is forked." It appears to us that the fear here described is that of the worm of the grave, and that the next sentence is an enforcement of the same idea. Throughout this speech the antagonist principle of life is kept constantly in view :- แ Merely, thou art death's fool." "And death unloads thee." "What's yet in this, That bears the name of life? Yet in this life Lie hid more thousand deaths." a Eld-old age, or old people. 380 [ACT III. MEASURE FOR MEASURE. What's yet in this, Yet in this life yet death we fear, Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty, To make thy riches pleasant. That bears the name of life? Lie hid more thousand deaths: That makes these odds all even. CLAUD. I humbly thank you. To sue to live, I find I seek to die; And seeking death find life: Let it come on. Enter ISABELLA. ISAB. What, ho! Peace here; grace and good company! PROV. Who's there? come in: the wish deserves a welcome. DUKE. Dear sir, ere long I 'll visit you again. CLAUD. Most holy sir, I thank you. ISAB. My business is a word or two with Claudio. PROV. And very welcome. Look, signior, here 's Look, signior, here's your sister. DUKE. Provost, a word with you. PROV. As many as you please. DUKE. Bring me to hear them speak, where I may be conceal'd ª. CLAUD. Now, sister, what's the comfort? [Exeunt DUKE and Provost. b ISAB. Why, as all comforts are; most good, most good indeed: Lord Angelo, having affairs to heaven, Intends for his swift ambassador, you Where you shall be an everlasting leiger: Therefore your best appointment make with speed; To-morrow you set on. CLAUD. Is there no remedy? a The reading of the original folio is, "Bring them to hear me speak, where I may be conceal'd.” This is clearly an error; for the Duke does not desire that Claudio and his sister should hear him speak, but that being concealed he should hear them. The second folio corrects this manifest error, and at the same time creates another error:- Bring them to speak, where I may be conceal'd, yet hear them." This is the usual reading; yet it is clearly wrong; for the Duke and the Provost go out to the place of concealment, whilst Claudio and his sister remain. The transposition of the pronouns in the original line gives the meaning. The emphatic repetition of most good, which occurs in the original, is got rid of in all modern editions upon Steevens's principle of allegiance to ten syllables. C Leiger. The commentators appear to have overlooked that the use of the word leiger is dis- tinctly associated with the image of an ambassador in the preceding line. A leiger ambassador was a resident ambassador-not one sent on a brief and special mission. There is a passage in Lord Bacon which gives us this meaning distinctly: "Leiger ambassadors, or agents, were sent to remain in or near the courts of those princes or states, to observe their motions, or to hold cor- respondence with them." The same association of ideas is carried forward in the word appoint- ment, which Steevens explains as preparation for death. But the word especially belongs to an ambassador, as we find in Burnet: "He had the appointments of an ambassador, but would not take the character." SCENE I.] 381 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. ISAB. None, but such remedy as, to save a head, To cleave a heart in twain. CLAUD. But is there any? ISAB. Yes, brother, you may live; There is a devilish mercy in the judge, If you'll implore it, that will free your life, But fetter you till death. CLAUD. Perpetual durance? ISAB. Ay, just, perpetual durance; a restraint, Though all the world's vastidity you had, To a determin'd scope. CLAUD. But in what nature? ISAB. In such a one as (you consenting to 't) Would bark your honour from that trunk you bear, And leave you naked. CLAUD. Let me know the point. ISAB. O, I do fear thee, Claudio; and I quake, Lest thou a feverous life shouldst entertain, And six or seven winters more respect Than a perpetual honour. Dar'st thou die? The sense of death is most in apprehension; And the poor beetle, that we tread upon, In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great As when a giant dies". CLAUD. Why give you me this shame? Think you I can a resolution fetch From flowery tenderness? If I must die, I will encounter darkness as a bride, And hug it in mine arms. ISAB. There spake my brother; there my father's grave Did utter forth a voice! Yes, thou must die: Thou art too noble to conserve a life In base appliances. This outward-sainted deputy,- Whose settled visage and deliberate word Nips youth i' the head, and follies doth emmew, As falcon doth the fowl,-is yet a devil; His filth within being cast, he would appear A pond as deep as hell. CLAUD. a The precise ª Angelo? a Precise. The original folio gives us the meaningless word prenzie, not only here but in the subsequent line,—“ In prenzie guards." Warburton proposes to read priestly; Steevens and Ma- lone, following the second folio, give us princely. It appears to us that, having to choose some word which would have the double merit of agreeing with the sense of the passage and being similar in the number and form of the letters, nothing can be more unfortunate than the correction of princely. Warburton's priestly is much nearer the meaning intended to be conveyed. Tieck 382 [ACT III. MEASURE FOR MEASURE. ISAB. O, 't is the cunning livery of hell, The damned'st body to invest and cover In precise guards! Dost thou think, Claudio, If I would yield him my virginity, Thou mightst be freed? CLAUD. O, heavens! it cannot be. ISAB. Yes, he would give 't thee, from this rank offence, So to offend him still: This night's the time That I should do what I abhor to name, Or else thou diest to-morrow. CLAUD. ISAB. O, were it but my life, Thou shalt not do 't. I'd throw it down for your deliverance As frankly as a pin. CLAUD. Thanks, dear Isabel. ISAB. Be ready, Claudio, for your death to-morrow. CLAUD. Yes. Has he affections in him, That thus can make him bite the law by the nose, When he would force it? Sure it is no sin; Or of the deadly seven it is the least. ISAB. Which is the least? CLAUD. If it were damnable, he, being so wise, Why would he for the momentary trick Be perdurably fin'd?—O Isabel ! ISAB. What says my brother? CLAUD. Death is a fearful thing. ISAB. And shamed life a hateful. CLAUD. Ay, but to die, and go we know not where ; To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot; This sensible warm motion to become has suggested, as we think very happily, the word precise. It will be seen at once that this word has a much closer resemblance to prenzie than either of the others:- prenzie. precise. princelie. priestlie. • Angelo has already been called precise; and the term, so familiar to Shakspere's contemporaries, of precisian, would make Claudio's epithet perfectly appropriate and intelligible. It appears to us that we must adopt the same change in both instances. Princely guards-understanding by guards the trimmings of a robe-certainly does not give us the meaning of the poet: it only says, the worst man may wear a rich robe: priestly is here again much better. But precise guards distinctly gives us the formal trimmings of the scholastic robe, to which Milton alludes in Comus:'- "O foolishness of men! that lend their ears To those budge doctors of the Stoic fur, And fetch their precepts from the Cynic tub." Regarding the authority of the second folio as very trifling, we adopt Tieck's reading. SCENE I.] 383 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. A kneaded clod; and the delighted a spirit To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside b In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice ; To be imprison'd in the viewless winds, And blown with restless violence round about The pendent world; or to be worse than worst Of those, that lawless and incertain thoughts Imagine howling!-'t is too horrible! The weariest and most loathed worldly life, That age, ach, penury, and imprisonment Can lay on nature, is a paradise To what we fear of death. ISAB. Alas! alas! CLAUD. Sweet sister, let me live: What sin you do to save a brother's life, Nature dispenses with the deed so far, That it becomes a virtue. ISAB. O, you beast! O, faithless coward! O, dishonest wretch! Wilt thou be made a man out of my vice? Is 't not a kind of incest, to take life From thine own sister's shame? What should I think? Heaven shield, my mother play'd my father fair! For such a warped slip of wilderness © C Ne'er issued from his blood. Take my defiance; Die; perish! might but my bending down Reprieve thee from thy fate, it should proceed : I'll pray a thousand prayers for thy death, No word to save thee. CLAUD. Nay, hear me, Isabel. ISAB. O, fie, fie, fie! Thy sin's not accidental, but a trade : Mercy to thee would prove itself a bawd: 'Tis best that thou diest quickly. CLAUD. O hear me, Isabella. [Going. a Delighted. This epithet has been changed to dilated; and it has been proposed to read benighted, and delinquent. Warburton explains "the delighted spirit" to mean the soul once accustomed to delight. We agree with the learned and agreeable writer of an article on Farmer, published in 'Fraser's Magazine,' that Warburton's interpretation is "rather strained;" but we cannot recommend his own suggestion of delated. We are indebted to an anonymous corre- spondent for an explanation, which, if not quite unexceptionable, has certainly the merit of great ingenuity:-" Does not the word delighted (de-lighted) mean removed from the regions of light, which is a strictly classic use of the prepositive particle de, and very frequent in Shakspere?" b Regions. The original has region; as, in a subsequent line, it has thought. We are not quite satisfied with the change; but, in a passage like this, which is familiar to every one, the slightest deviation from the received text produces an unpleasant feeling to the reader. • Wilderness-wildness. 384 LACT III. MEASURE FOR MEASURE. Re-enter DUKE. DUKE. Vouchsafe a word, young sister, but one word. ISAB. What is your will? DUKE. Might you dispense with your leisure, I would by and by have some speech with you: the satisfaction I would require is likewise your own benefit. ISAB. I have no superfluous leisure; my stay must be stolen out of other affairs; but I will attend you a while. you DUKE. [TO CLAUDIO, aside.] Son, I have overheard what hath passed between and your sister. Angelo had never the purpose to corrupt her; only he hath made an assay of her virtue, to practise his judgment with the dis- position of natures; she, having the truth of honour in her, hath made him that gracious denial which he is most glad to receive: I am confessor to Angelo, and I know this to be true; therefore prepare yourself to death: Do not satisfy your resolution with hopes that are fallible: to-morrow you must die; go to your knees, and make ready. CLAUD. Let me ask my sister pardon. I am so out of love with life, that I will sue to be rid of it. DUKE. Hold you there: farewell. Provost, a word with you. Re-enter Provost. PROV. What's your will, father? [Exit CLAUDIO. DUKE. That now you are come you will be gone: Leave me a while with the maid; my mind promises with my habit no loss shall touch her by my com- pany. PROV. In good time". [Exit Provost. DUKE. The hand that hath made you fair hath made you good: the goodness that is cheap in beauty makes beauty brief in goodness; but grace, being the soul of your complexion, should keep the body of it ever fair. The assault that Angelo hath made to you, fortune hath conveyed to my understanding; and, but that frailty hath examples for his falling, I should wonder at Angelo. How will you do to content this substitute, and to save your brother ? ISAB. I am now going to resolve him: I had rather my brother die by the law, than my son should be unlawfully born. But O, how much is the good duke deceived in Angelo! If ever he return, and I can speak to him, I will open my lips in vain, or discover his government. DUKE. That shall not be much amiss: Yet, as the matter now stands, he will avoid your accusation; he made trial of you only.-Therefore, fasten your ear on my advisings; to the love I have in doing good. A remedy presents itself. I do make myself believe that you may most uprighteously do a poor wronged lady a merited benefit; redeem your brother from the angry law; do no stain to your own gracious person; and much please the absent duke, if, peradventure, he shall ever return to have a hearing of this business. a In good time-very well-à la bonne heure. SCENE I.] 385 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. ISAB. Let me hear you speak further; I have spirit to do anything that appears not foul in the truth of my spirit. DUKE. Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful. Have you not heard speak of Mariana, the sister of Frederick, the great soldier, who miscarried at sea? ISAB. I have heard of the lady, and good words went with her name. DUKE. She should this Angelo have married: was affianced to her by oath, and the nuptial appointed: between which time of the contract and limit of the solemnity, her brother Frederick was wracked at sea, having in that perished vessel the dowry of his sister. But mark, how heavily this befel to the poor gentlewoman: there she lost a noble and renowned brother, in his love toward her ever most kind and natural; with him the portion and sinew of her fortune, her marriage-dowry; with both her combinate a husband, this well-seeming Angelo. ISAB. Can this be so? Did Angelo so leave her? а DUKE. Left her in her tears, and dried not one of them with his comfort; swal- lowed his vows whole, pretending, in her, discoveries of dishonour; in few, bestowed her on her own lamentation, which she yet wears for his sake; and he, a marble to her tears, is washed with them, but relents not. ISAB. What a merit were it in death, to take this poor maid from the world! What corruption in this life, that it will let this man live!—But how out of this can she avail? DUKE. It is a rupture that you may easily heal; and the cure of it not only saves your brother, but keeps you from dishonour in doing it. ISAB. Show me how, good father. DUKE. This fore-named maid hath yet in her the continuance of her first affec- tion; his unjust unkindness, that in all reason should have quenched her love, hath, like an impediment in the current, made it more violent and un- ruly. Go you to Angelo; answer his requiring with a plausible obedience; agree with his demands to the point: only refer yourself to this advantage, -first, that your stay with him may not be long; that the time may have all shadow and silence in it; and the place answer to convenience: this being granted in course b, now follows all. We shall advise this wronged maid to stead up your appointment, go in your place; if the encounter ac- knowledge itself hereafter, it may compel him to her recompense: and here, by this, is your brother saved, your honour untainted, the poor Mariana advantaged, and the corrupt deputy scaled. The maid will I frame, and make fit for his attempt. If you think well to carry this as you may, the doubleness of the benefit defends the deceit from reproof. What think you of it? ISAB. The image of it gives me content already; and, I trust, it will grow to a most prosperous perfection. DUKE. It lies much in your holding up: Haste you speedily to Angelo; if for a Combinate-betrothed. The original has and before " now follows." C Scaled. See note on 'Coriolanus,' Act I., Scene 1. 386 [ACT III. MEASURE FOR MEASURE. I this night he entreat you to his bed, give him promise of satisfaction. will presently to St. Luke's; there, at the moated grange, resides this de- jected Mariana: At that place call upon me; and despatch with Angelo, that it may be quickly. ISAB. I thank you for this comfort: Fare you well, good father. [Exeunt severally. SCENE II.—The Street before the Prison. Enter DUKE, as a Friar; to him ELBOW, Clown, and Officers. ELB. Nay, if there be no remedy for it, but that you will needs buy and sell men and women like beasts, we shall have all the world drink brown and white bastard. DUKE. O, heavens! what stuff is here? CLO. 'T was never merry world, since, of two usuries, the merriest was put down, and the worser allowed by order of law a furred gown to keep him warm ; and furred with fox and lambskins too, to signify, that craft, being richer than innocency, stands for the facing. ELB. Come your way, sir:-Bless you, good father friar. DUKE. And you, good brother father 2: What offence hath this man made you, sir? ELB. Marry, sir, he hath offended the law; and, sir, we take him to be a thief too, sir; for we have found upon him, sir, a strange pick-lock, which we have sent to the deputy. DUKE. Fie, sirrah; a bawd, a wicked bawd! The evil that thou causest to be done, That is thy means to live: Do thou but think What 't is to cram a maw, or clothe a back, From such a filthy vice: say to thyself,- From their abominable and beastly touches I drink, I eat, array myself, and live. Canst thou believe thy living is a life, So stinkingly depending? Go, mend; go, mend. CLO. Indeed, it does stink in some sort, sir; but yet, sir, I would prove- DUKE. Nay, if the devil have given thee proofs for sin, Thou wilt prove his. Take him to prison, officer. Correction and instruction must both work, Ere this rude beast will profit. ELB. He must before the deputy, sir; he has given him warning: the deputy cannot abide a whoremaster: if he be a whoremonger, and comes before him, he were as good go a mile on his errand. a Shakspere knew something of the primitive meanings of words. Friar is a corruption of the French frère; and Tyrwhitt shows us how the Duke's joke would read in French:-“ Dieu vous bénisse, mon père frère. Et vous aussi, mon frère père." SCENE II.] 387 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. DUKE. That we were all, as some would seem to be, From our faults, as faults from seeming, free! Enter LUCIO. ELB. His neck will come to your waist, a cord, sir. CLO. I spy comfort; I cry, bail: Here's a gentleman, and a friend of mine. Lucio. How now, noble Pompey? What, at the wheels of Cæsar? Art thou led in triumph? What, is there none of Pygmalion's images, newly made woman, to be had now, for putting the hand in the pocket and extracting it clutched? What reply? Ha? What sayest thou to this tune, matter, and method? Is 't not drowned i' the last rain? Ha? What sayest thou, trot? Is the world as it was, man? Which is the way? Is it sad, and few words? Or how? The trick of it? DUKE. Still thus, and thus! still worse! LUCIO. How doth my dear morsel, thy mistress? Procures she still? Ha? CLO. Troth, sir, she hath eaten up all her beef, and she is herself in the tub. LUCIO. Why, 't is good; it is the right of it: it must be so: Ever your fresh whore, and powdered bawd: An unshunned consequence: it must be so: Art going to prison, Pompey? CLO. Yes, faith, sir. LUCIO. Why, 't is not amiss, Pompey: Farewell; Go; say, I sent thee thither. For debt, Pompey? Or how? ELB. For being a bawd, for being a bawd. LUCIO. Well, then imprison him: If imprisonment be the due of a bawd, why, 't is his right: Bawd is he, doubtless, and of antiquity too: bawd-born. Farewell, good Pompey: Commend me to the prison, Pompey: You will turn good husband now, Pompey; you will keep the house ª. CLO. I hope, sir, your good worship will be my bail. LUCIO. No, indeed, will I not, Pompey; it is not the wear. I will pray, Pompey, to increase your bondage: if you take it not patiently, why, your mettle is the more: Adieu, trusty Pompey.-Bless you, friar. DUKE. And you. LUCIO. Does Bridget paint still, Pompey? Ha? ELB. Come your ways, sir; come. CLO. You will not bail me then, sir? LUCIO. Then, Pompey,-nor now.—What news abroad, friar? ELB. Come your ways, sir; come. LUCIO. Go,—to kennel, Pompey, go: What news, friar, of the duke? What news? [Exeunt ELBOW, Clown, and Officers. DUKE. I know none: Can you tell me of any? LUCIO. Some say he is with the emperor of Russia; other some, he is in Rome: But where is he, think you? a This passage supports Dr. Jamieson's etymology of husband; who is of opinion that the ter- minating syllable, band, is not from the Anglo-Saxon Bind-an, to bind; but from buand, buende, the past participle of bu-an, by-an, habitare, colere. 388 [ACT III. MEASURE FOR MEASURE. DUKE. I know not where: But wheresoever, I wish him well. usurp LUCIO. It was a mad fantastical trick of him, to steal from the state, and the beggary he was never born to. Lord Angelo dukes it well in his absence; he puts transgression to 't. DUKE. He does well in 't. LUCIO. A little more lenity to lechery would do no harm in him; something too crabbed that way, friar. DUKE. It is too general a vice, and severity must cure it. LUCIO. Yes, in good sooth, the vice is of a great kindred; it is well allied: but it is impossible to extirp it quite, friar, till eating and drinking be put down. They say, this Angelo was not made by man and woman, after this downright way of creation: Is it true, think you? DUKE. How should he be made then? LUCIO. Some report, a sea-maid spawned him:-Some, that he was begot between two stock-fishes:-But it is certain, that when he makes water, his urine is congealed ice; that I know to be true: and he is a motion generative, that 's infallible. DUKE. You are pleasant, sir; and speak apace. LUCIO. Why, what a ruthless thing is this in him, for the rebellion of a codpiece to take away the life of a man! Would the duke, that is absent, have done this? Ere he would have hanged a man for the getting a hundred bastards, he would have paid for the nursing a thousand: He had some feeling of the sport; he knew the service, and that instructed him to mercy. DUKE. I never heard the absent duke much detected for women; he was not inclined that way. LUCIO. O, sir, you are deceived. DUKE. "T is not possible. LUCIO. Who? not the duke? yes, your beggar of fifty;—and his use was, to put a ducat in her clack-dish: the duke had crotchets in him: He would be drunk, too; that let me inform you. DUKE. You do him wrong, surely. LUCIO. Sir, I was an inward of his: A shy fellow was the duke: and, I believe, I know the cause of his withdrawing. DUKE. What, I prithee, might be the cause? b LUCIO. No, pardon ;-'t is a secret must be locked within the teeth and the lips but this I can let you understand, -the greater file of the subject held the duke to be wise. DUKE. Wise? why, no question but he was. LUCIO. A very superficial, ignorant, unweighing fellow. DUKE. Either this is envy in you, folly, or mistaking; the very stream of his life, and the business he hath helmed, must, upon a warranted need, give him a better proclamation. Let him be but testimonied in his own bring- ings forth, and he shall appear to the envious, a scholar, a statesman, and a a Inward-intimate. b The greater number of the people. • Helmed-steered through. SCENE II.] 389 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. soldier: Therefore, you speak unskilfully; or, if your knowledge be more, it is much darkened in your malice. LUCIO. Sir, I know him, and I love him. DUKE. Love talks with better knowledge, and knowledge with dearer love. LUCIO. Come, sir, I know what I know. But, if DUKE. I can hardly believe that, since you know not what you speak. ever the duke return, (as our prayers are he may,) let me desire you to make your answer before him: If it be honest you have spoke, you have courage to maintain it: I am bound to call upon you; and, I pray you, your name. LUCIO. Sir, my name is Lucio; well known to the duke. DUKE. He shall know you better, sir, if I may live to report you. LUCIO. I fear you not. DUKE. O, you hope the duke will return no more; or you imagine me too un- hurtful an opposite. But, indeed, I can do you little harm: you'll forswear this again. LUCIO. I'll be hanged first: thou art deceived in me, friar. But no more of this: Canst thou tell if Claudio die to-morrow, or no? DUKE. Why should he die, sir? Lucio. Why? for filling a bottle with a tun-dish. I would the duke, we talk of, were returned again: this ungenitured agent will unpeople the province with continency; sparrows must not build in his house-eaves, because they are lecherous. The duke yet would have dark deeds darkly answered; he would never bring them to light: would he were returned! Marry, this Claudio is condemned for untrussing. Farewell, good friar; I prithee, pray for me. The duke, I say to thee again, would eat mutton on Fridays. He's now past it; yet, and I say to thee, he would mouth with a beggar, though she smelt brown bread and garlic: say, that I said so. Farewell. DUKE. No might nor greatness in mortality Can censure 'scape; back-wounding calumny The whitest virtue strikes: What king so strong, Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue! But who comes here? Enter ESCALUs, Provost, Bawd, and Officers. ESCAL. Go, away with her to prison. [Exit. BAWD. Good my lord, be good to me; your honour is accounted a merciful man: good my lord. b ESCAL. Double and treble admonition, and still forfeit in the same kind? This would make mercy swear, and play the tyrant. PROV. A bawd of eleven years' continuance, may it please your honour. BAWD. My lord, this is one Lucio's information against me: mistress Kate Keepdown was with child by him in the duke's time; he promised her marriage; his child is a year and a quarter old, come Philip and Jacob: I have kept it myself; and see how he goes about to abuse me. Opposite-adversary. COMEDIES.-VOL. II. b Forfeit-transgress. D D 390 [АСТ III. MEASURE FOR MEASURE. ESCAL. That fellow is a fellow of much licence :-let him be called before us. -Away with her to prison: Go to; no more words. [Exeunt Bawd and Officers.] Provost, my brother Angelo will not be altered, Claudio must die to-morrow: let him be furnished with divines, and have all charitable preparation: if my brother wrought by my pity, it should not be so with him. PROV. So please you, this friar hath been with him, and advised him for the entertainment of death. ESCAL. Good even, good father. DUKE. Bliss and goodness on you! ESCAL. Of whence are you? DUKE. Not of this country, though my chance is now To use it for my time: I am a brother Of gracious order, late come from the see, In special business from his holiness. ESCAL. What news abroad i' the world? DUKE. None, but that there is so great a fever on goodness, that the dissolution of it must cure it: novelty is only in request; and it is as dangerous to be aged in any kind of course, as it is virtuous to be constant in any under- taking. There is scarce truth enough alive to make societies secure; but security enough to make fellowships accursed: much upon this riddle runs the wisdom of the world. This news is old enough, yet it is every day's news. I pray you, sir, of what disposition was the duke? b ESCAL. One, that, above all other strifes, contended especially to know himself. DUKE. What pleasure was he given to? ESCAL. Rather rejoicing to see another merry, than merry at anything which professed to make him rejoice: a gentleman of all temperance. But leave we him to his events, with a prayer they may prove prosperous; and let me desire to know how you find Claudio prepared. I am made to understand that you have lent him visitation. DUKE. He professes to have received no sinister measure from his judge, but most willingly humbles himself to the determination of justice: yet had he framed to himself, by the instruction of his frailty, many deceiving promises of life; which I, by my good leisure, have discredited to him, and now is he resolved to die. ESCAL. You have paid the heavens your function, and the prisoner the very debt of your calling. I have laboured for the poor gentleman, to the extremest shore of my modesty; but my brother justice have I found so severe, that he hath forced me to tell him, he is indeed-justice. DUKE. If his own life answer the straitness of his proceeding, it shall become him well: wherein if he chance to fail he hath sentenced himself. a In the original, as is found before "it is;" but the sentence ends, as here, at "undertaking.” The editors therefore reject as; but it has been recently restored, and "there is scarce truth," &c., is made dependent upon as. We cannot see any logical connection, and prefer the accustomed reading. Security-legal security-surety. b SCENE II.] 391 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. ESCAL. I am going to visit the prisoner: Fare you well. DUKE. Peace be with you! He who the sword of heaven will bear Should be as holy as severe; Pattern in himself, to know, Grace to stand, and virtue goa; More nor less to others paying, Than by self-offences weighing. Shame to him, whose cruel striking Kills for faults of his own liking! Twice treble shame on Angelo, To weed my vice, and let his grow! O, what may man within him hide, Though angel on the outward side! How may likeness, made in crimes, Making practice on the times, To draw with idle spiders' strings Most ponderous and substantial things: Craft against vice I must apply: With Angelo to-night shall lie His old betrothed, but despised; So disguise shall, by the disguised, Pay with falsehood false exacting, And perform an old contracting. [Exeunt ESCALUS and Provost. a Go. The to which precedes stand must be understood here. b Likeness-comeliness. [Exit. DD 2 J-W.WIMPER ["The moated grange.”] W ACT IV. SCENE I.—A Room in Mariana's House. Mariana discovered sitting; a Boy singing. SONG. Take, oh, take those lips away 8, That so sweetly were forsworn; And those eyes, the break of day, Lights that do mislead the morn ; But my kisses bring again, bring again, Seals of love, but seal'd in vain, seal'd in vain MARI. Break off thy song, and haste thee quick away; Here comes a man of comfort, whose advice Hath often still'd my brawling discontent.- Enter DUKE. I cry you mercy, sir; and well could wish You had not found me here so musical: [Exit Boy. SCENE I.] 393 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. Let me excuse me, and believe me so,- My mirth it much displeas'd, but pleas'd my woe. DUKE. 'Tis good; though music oft hath such a charm, To make bad good, and good provoke to harm. I pray you, tell me, hath anybody inquired for me here to-day? much upon this time have I promised here to meet. MARI. You have not been inquired after: I have sat here all day. Enter ISABELLA. DUKE. I do constantly believe you:-The time is come, even now. I shall crave your forbearance a little; may be, I will call upon you anon, for some advantage to yourself. MARI. I am always bound to you. DUKE. Very well met, and welcome. What is the news from this good deputy? b ISAB. He hath a garden circummur'da with brick, Whose western side is with a vineyard back'd; And to that vineyard is a planched gate, That makes his opening with this bigger key : This other doth command a little door, Which from the vineyard to the garden leads; There have I made my promise upon the heavy Middle of the night to call upon him. DUKE. But shall you on your knowledge find this way? ISAB. I have ta'en a due and wary note upon 't; With whispering and most guilty diligence, In action all of precept, he did show me The way twice o'er. DUKE. Are there no other tokens Between you 'greed, concerning her observance? ISAB. No none, but only a repair i' the dark; And that I have possess'de him, my most stay Can be but brief: for I have made him know, I have a servant comes with me along, That stays upon me; whose persuasion is, I come about my brother. DUKE. "T is well borne up. I have not yet made known to Mariana A word of this:-What, ho! within! come forth Re-enter MARIANA. I pray you be acquainted with this maid; [Exit. a Circummur'd-walled round. b Planched-planked-made of boards. с c Possess'd-informed. 394 [ACT IV. MEASURE FOR MEASURE. She comes to do you good. ISAB. I do desire the like. DUKE. Do you persuade yourself, that I respect you? MARI. Good friar, I know you do; and have found it. DUKE. Take then this your companion by the hand, Who hath a story ready for your ear: I shall attend your leisure; but make haste; The vaporous night approaches. MARI. Will 't please you walk aside? [Exeunt MARIANA and ISABELLA, DUKE. O place and greatness, millions of false eyes Are stuck upon thee! volumes of report Run with these false and most contrarious quests Upon thy doings! thousand escapes of wit Make thee the father of their idle dream, And rack thee in their fancies !—Welcome! How agreed? Re-enter MARIANA and Isabella. ISAB. She'll take the enterprise upon her, father, If you advise it. DUKE. It is not my consent, Little have you to say, But my entreaty too. ISAB. When you depart from him, but, soft and low, " MARI. Remember now my brother." Fear me not. DUKE. Nor, gentle daughter, fear you not at all : He is your husband on a pre-contract: To bring you thus together, 't is no sin; Sith that the justice of your title to him Doth flourish the deceit. Come, let us go: Our corn 's to reap, for yet our tithe 's to sow. a Quests-inquisitions. [Exeunt. b Flourish-bestow propriety and ornament,-like rich work upon a coarse ground. So in 'Twelfth Night' we have, "Empty trunks o'erflourish'd by the devil.” • Tithe. It has been proposed to read tilth, which Farmer says is provincially used for land tilled. To sow the tilth would therefore be to sow the land prepared for seed. Johnson defends the old reading by saying that tithe is taken, by an easy metonymy, for harvest. But tithe may be also taken in another sense, namely, the proportion that the seed which is sown bears to the harvest. "Our corn 's to reap," and therefore we must go to sow our tithe-our seed which is to produce tenfold. SCENE II.] 395 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. SCENE II.-A Room in the Prison. Enter Provost and Clown. PROV. Come hither, sirrah: Can you cut off a man's head? To- CLO. If the man be a bachelor, sir, I can: but if he be a married man, he is his wife's head, and I can never cut off a woman's head. PROV. Come, sir, leave me your snatches, and yield me a direct answer. morrow morning are to die Claudio and Barnardine: Here is in our prison a common executioner, who in his office lacks a helper: if you will take it on you to assist him, it shall redeem you from your gyves; if not, you shall have your full time of imprisonment, and your deliverance with an unpitied whipping; for you have been a notorious bawd. CLO. Sir, I have been an unlawful bawd, time out of mind; but yet I will be content to be a lawful hangman. I would be glad to receive some instruc- tion from my fellow partner. PROV. What ho, Abhorson! Where 's Abhorson, there? Enter ABHORSON. ABHOR. Do you call, sir? PROV. Sirrah, here's a fellow will help you to-morrow in your execution: If you think it meet, compound with him by the year, and let him abide here with you; if not, use him for the present, and dismiss him: He cannot plead his estimation with you; he hath been a bawd. ABHOR. A bawd, sir? Fie upon him, he will discredit our mystery. PROV. Go to, sir; you weigh equally; a feather will turn the scale. [Exit. CLO. Pray, sir, by your good favour, (for, surely, sir, a good favour you have, but that you have a hanging look,) do you call, sir, your occupation a mystery? ABHOR. Ay, sir; a mystery. CLO. Painting, sir, I have heard say, is a mystery; and your whores, sir, being members of my occupation, using painting, do prove my occupation a mystery: but what mystery there should be in hanging, if I should be hanged I cannot imagine. ABHOR. Sir, it is a mystery. CLO. Proof? ABHOR. Every true man's apparel fits your thief- CLO. If it be too little for your thief, your true man thinks it big enough; if it be too big for your thief, your thief thinks it little enough: so every true man's apparel fits your thiefa. a We divide this assertion and proof between the two characters, as in the original. The whole of the elaborate argument is given by the modern editors to Abhorson; but this piece of oratory is not at all characteristic of his sententicus gravity. Warburton thinks that something has been omitted; but it appears to us that, when the Clown asks for "proof" that "hanging is a mys- tery," the hangman commences his exposition with an account of the thief's clothes,-the link of fellowship between them; and, proceeding slowly and logically, is interrupted by the lively Clown 396 [ACT IV. MEASURE FOR MEASURE. PROV. Are you agreed? Re-enter Provost. CLO. Sir, I will serve him; for I do find your hangman is a more penitent trade than your bawd; he doth oftener ask forgiveness. PROV. You, sirrah, provide your block and your axe, to-morrow four o'clock. ABHOR. Come on, bawd; I will instruct thee in my trade; follow. CLO. I do desire to learn, sir; and, I hope, if you have occasion to use me for your own turn, you shall find me yarea: for, truly, sir, for your kindness I owe you a good turn. PROV. Call hither Barnardine and Claudio: [Exeunt Clown and ABHORSON. Th' one has my pity; not a jot the other, Being a murtherer, though he were my brother. Enter CLAUDIO. Look, here's the warrant, Claudio, for thy death : 'Tis now dead midnight, and by eight to-morrow Thou must be made immortal. Where 's Barnardine? CLAUD. As fast lock'd up in sleep, as guiltless labour When it lies starkly in the traveller's bones : He will not wake. PROV. b Who can do good on him? Well, go, prepare yourself. But hark, what noise? Heaven give your spirits comfort! [Knocking within. [Exit CLAUDIO. By and by :- I hope it is some pardon, or reprieve, For the most gentle Claudio.--Welcome, father. Enter DUKE. DUKE. The best and wholesomest spirits of the night Envelop you, good provost! Who call'd here of late? PROV. None, since the curfew rung. DUKE. PROV. No. Not Isabel! DUKE. They will then, ere 't be long. PROV. What comfort is for Claudio? DUKE. PROV. It is a bitter deputy. There's some in hope. DUKE. Not so, not so; his life is parallel'd Even with the stroke and line of his great justice; He doth with holy abstinence subdue explaining his first postulate. They are then both interrupted by the entrance of the Provost. These dramatic breaks in a discourse are never sufficiently taken into account by the com- mentators. a Yare-ready-nimble. b Starkly-stiffly. SCENE II.] 397 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. That in himself, which he spurs on his power To qualify a in others: were he meal'd b With that which he corrects, then were he tyrannous; But this being so, he 's just.-Now are they come.- This is a gentle provost : Seldom, when The steeled gaoler is the friend of men. How now? What noise? That wounds the unsisting [Knocking within.-Provost goes out. That spirit 's possess'd with haste, postern with these strokes. Provost returns, speaking to one at the door. PROV. There he must stay, until the officer Arise to let him in; he is call'd up. DUKE. Have you no countermand for Claudio yet, But he must die to-morrow? PROV. None, sir, none DUKE. As near the dawning, provost, as it is, You shall hear more ere morning: PROV. Happily You something know; yet, I believe, there comes No countermand; no such example have we: Besides, upon the very sieged of justice, Lord Angelo hath to the public ear Profess'd the contrary. Enter a Messenger. This is his lordship's man. DUKE. And here comes Claudio's pardon e. MESS. My lord hath sent you this note; and by me this further charge, that you swerve not from the smallest article of it, neither in time, matter, or other circumstance. Good morrow; for, as I take it, it is almost day. PROV. I shall obey him. DUKE. This is his pardon purchas'd by such sin, For which the pardoner himself is in: Hence hath offence his quick celerity, a Qualify-moderate. b Meal'd-compounded-from mesler. с [Exit Messenger. [Aside. Unsisting. This is one of Shakspere's Latinisms, by which he means, never at rest, from sisto, to stand still. Blackstone suggested this meaning. Rowe gave us unresisting, and Hanmer unresting. d Siege-seat. • We venture to make an alteration in the person speaking these two lines. In the original the Duke says, This is his lordship's man;" whereas it is not very likely that the Duke would either know the man, or, in his assumed capacity of a friar, would recognise him. But it is still less likely that the Provost, who has so strongly expressed his opinion that Angelo would be unrelent- ing, and who subsequently says "I I told you," should, upon the very appearance of a messenger, exclaim, "And here comes Claudio's pardon." 398 [ACT IV. MEASURE FOR MEASURE. When it is borne in high authority: When vice makes mercy, mercy's so extended, That for the fault's love is the offender friended.- Now, sir, what news? PROV. I told you: Lord Angelo, belike, thinking me remiss in mine office, awakens me with this unwonted putting onª: methinks, strangely; for he hath not used it before. DUKE. Pray you, let 's hear. PROV. [Reads.] "Whatsoever you may hear to the contrary, let Claudio be exe- cuted by four of the clock; and, in the afternoon, Barnardine: for my better satisfaction, let me have Claudio's head sent me by five. Let this be duly per- formed; with a thought that more depends on it than we must yet deliver. Thus fail not to do your office, as you will answer it at your peril." What say you to this, sir? DUKE. What is that Barnardine, who is to be executed in the afternoon? PROV. A Bohemian born; but here nursed up and bred: one that is a prisoner nine years old b. DUKE. How came it, that the absent duke had not either delivered him to his liberty, or executed him? I have heard it was ever his manner to do So. PROV. His friends still wrought reprieves for him: And, indeed, his fact, till now in the government of Lord Angelo, came not to an undoubtful proof. DUKE. Is it now apparent? PROV. Most manifest, and not denied by himself. DUKE. Hath he borne himself penitently in prison? How seems he to be touched? PROV. A man that apprehends death no more dreadfully, but as a drunken sleep; careless, reckless, and fearless of what's past, present, or to come; insensible of mortality, and desperately mortal. DUKE. He wants advice. PROV. He will hear none; he hath evermore had the liberty of the prison; give him leave to escape hence, he would not: drunk many times a day, if not many days entirely drunk. We have very oft awaked him, as if to carry him to execution, and showed him a seeming warrrant for it: it hath not moved him at all. DUKE. More of him anon. There is written in your brow, provost, honesty and constancy if I read it not truly, my ancient skill beguiles me; but in the boldness of my cunning, I will lay myself in hazard. Claudio, whom here you have warrant to execute, is no greater forfeit to the law than Angelo who hath sentenced him: To make you understand this in a manifested effect, I crave but four days' respite; for the which you are to do me both a present and a dangerous courtesy. PROV. Pray, sir, in what? a Putting on-incitement. b Nine years old—during nine years. SCENE III.] 399 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. DUKE. In the delaying death. PROV. Alack! how may I do it? having the hour limited; and an express command, under penalty, to deliver his head in the view of Angelo? I may make my case as Claudio's, to cross this in the smallest. DUKE. By the vow of mine order I warrant you, if my instructions may be your guide. Let this Barnardine be this morning executed, and his head borne to Angelo. PROV. Angelo hath seen them both, and will discover the favour. DUKE. O, death's a great disguiser: and you may add to it. Shave the head, and tie the beard; and say, it was the desire of the penitent to be so bared before his death: You know the course is common. If anything fall to you upon this, more than thanks and good fortune, by the saint whom I profess, I will plead against it with my life. PROV. Pardon me, good father: it is against my oath. DUKE. Were you sworn to the duke, or to the deputy? PROV. To him, and to his substitutes. DUKE. You will think you have made no offence, if the duke avouch the justice of your dealing? PROV. But what likelihood is in that? DUKE. Not a resemblance, but a certainty. Yet since I see you fearful, that neither my coat, integrity, nor persuasion, can with ease attempt you, I will go further than I meant, to pluck all fears out of you. Look you, sir, here is the hand and seal of the duke. You know the character, I doubt not; and the signet is not strange to you. PROV. I know them both. DUKE. The contents of this is the return of the duke; you shall anon over-read it at your pleasure: where you shall find, within these two days he will be here. This is a thing that Angelo knows not: for he this very day receives letters of strange tenor: perchance, of the duke's death; perchance, entering into some monastery; but, by chance, nothing of what is writ. Look, the unfolding star calls up the shepherd. Put not yourself into amazement, how these things should be: all difficulties are but easy when they are known. Call your executioner, and off with Barnardine's head: I will give him a present shrift, and advise him for a better place. Yet you are amazed: but this shall absolutely resolve you. Come, away; it is almost clear dawn. [Exeunt. SCENE III.-Another Room in the same. Enter Clown. CLO. I am as well acquainted here, as I was in our house of profession: one would think it were mistress Overdone's own house, for here be many of her old customers. First, here's young master Rash; he 's in for a 400 [ACT IV. MEASURE FOR MEASURE. 9 commodity of brown paper and old ginger, ninescore and seventeen pounds; of which he made five marks, ready money: marry, then, ginger was not much in request, for the old women were all dead. Then is there here one master Caper, at the suit of master Threepile the mercer, for some four suits of peach-coloured satin, which now peaches him a beggar. Then have we here young Dizy, and young master Deep-vow, and master Copper-spur, and master Starve-lackey, the rapier and dagger man, and young Drop-heir that killed lusty Pudding, and master Forthright the tilter, and brave master Shoe-tie the great traveller, and wild Half-can that stabbed Pots, and, I think, forty more; all great doers in our trade, and are now for the Lord's sakea. Enter ABHORSON ABHOR. Sirrah, bring Barnardine hither CLO. Master Barnardine! you must rise and be hanged, master Barnardine! ABHOR. What ho, Barnardine ! BARNAR. [Within.] A pox o' your throats! Who makes that noise there? What are you? CLO. Your friends, sir; the hangman: You must be so good, sir, to rise and be put to death. BARNAR. [Within.] Away, you rogue, away! I am sleepy. ABHOR. Tell him he must awake, and that quickly too. CLO. Pray, master Barnardine, awake till you are executed, and sleep after- wards. ABHOR. Go in to him, and fetch him out. CLO. He is coming, sir, he is coming; I hear his straw rustle. Enter BARNARDINE. ABHOR. Is the axe upon the block, sirrah? CLO. Very ready, sir. BARNAR. How now, Abhorson? what's the news with you? ABHOR. Truly, sir, I would desire you to clap into your prayers; for, look you, the warrant 's come. BARNAR. You rogue, I have been drinking all night, I am not fitted for 't. CLO. O, the better, sir; for he that drinks all night, and is hanged betimes in the morning, may sleep the sounder all the next day. a Pope reads “now in for the Lord's sake." But the meaning is, they are now dependent upon charity—crying to passengers for the Lord's sake, out of a grated window. The words are given in Nashe's 'Apologie for Pierce Pennilesse,' 1593; and we find them also in Davies's epigrams:— "Good gentle writers, for the Lord's sake, for the Lord's sake, Like Ludgate prisoner, lo, I begging make My moan.' " Malone restored the original passage, and cited these illustrations. SCENE III.] 401 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. Enter DUKE. ABHOR. Look you, sir, here comes your ghostly father. Do we jest now, think you? you, and DUKE. Sir, induced by my charity, and hearing how hastily you are to depart, I am come to advise you, comfort pray with you. BARNAB. Friar, not I; I have been drinking hard all night, and I will have more time to prepare me, or they shall beat out my brains with billets: I will not consent to die this day, that 's certain. DUKE. O, sir, you must; and therefore, I beseech you, Look forward on the journey you shall go. BARNAR. I swear, I will not die to-day for any man's persuasion. DUKE. But hear you,- BARNAR. Not a word; if you have anything to say to me, come to my ward: for thence will not I to-day. [Exit. Enter Provost. DUKE. Unfit to live, or die: O, gravel heart! After him, fellows; bring him to the block. PROV. Now, sir, how do you find the prisoner? DUKE. A creature unprepar'd, unmeet for death; And to transport him in the mind he is Were damnable. PROV. Here in the prison, father, There died this morning of a cruel fever One Ragozine, a most notorious pirate, [Exeunt ABHORSON and Clown. A man of Claudio's years; his beard, and head, Just of his colour: What if we do omit This reprobate, till he were inclin'd ; And satisfy the deputy with the visage Of Ragozine, more like to Claudio? DUKE. O, 't is an accident that heaven provides! Despatch it presently; the hour draws on Prefix'd by Angelo: See this be done, And sent according to command; whiles I Persuade this rude wretch willingly to die. PROV. This shall be done, good father, presently But Barnardine must die this afternoon; And how shall we continue Claudio, To save me from the danger that might come, If he were known alive? DUKE. Let this be done : Put them in secret holds, both Barnardine and Claudio : Ere twice the sun hath made his journal greeting 402 [ACT. IV. MEASURE FOR MEASURE. To yonder a generation, you shall find Your safety manifested. PROV. I am your free dependant. DUKE. And send the head to Angelo. Quick, despatch, Now will I write letters to Angelo,- [Exit Provost. The provost, he shall bear them,-whose contents Shall witness to him I am near at home; And that, by great injunctions I am bound To enter publicly: him I'll desire To meet me at the consecrated fount, A league below the city; and from thence, By cold gradation and weal-balanc'd form, We shall proceed with Angelo. Re-enter Provost. PROV. Here is the head; I'll carry it myself. DUKE. Convenient is it: Make a swift return; For I would commune with you of such things That want no ear but yours. PROV. I'll make all speed. ISAB. [Within.] Peace, ho, be here! DUKE. The tongue of Isabel:-She 's come to know, If yet her brother's pardon be come hither: But I will keep her ignorant of her good, To make her heavenly comforts of despair When it is least expected. ISAB. Ho, by your leave. Enter ISABELLA. DUKE. Good morning to you, fair and gracious daughter. [Exit. a Yonder. The original is yond, in which the printer no doubt followed the contraction of the writer. But in modern editions we have the under generation, "which change," Johnson says, "was made by Hanmer with true judgment." Shakspere has, indeed, in 'Richard II.,' alluded to the antipodes in a poetical figure:— "When the searching eye of heaven is hid Behind the globe, and lights the lower world.” But what is gained in the passage before us by perplexing the time when the Duke assures the Provost he shall find his safety manifested? The scene takes place before the dawning: Claudio is to be executed by four of the clock; the Duke says— "As near the dawning, provost, as it is, You shall hear more ere morning." Subsequently, when the morning is come, Isabella is told "the Duke comes home to-morrow." Speaking, then, in the dark prison, before sunrise, nothing can be more explicit than the Duke's statement that before the sun has twice made his daily greeting to yonder generation,-that is, to the life without the walls,-the Provost shall be assured of his safety. But at the time when he was speaking it would be evening at the antipodes; and if the Provost waited for his safety till the sun had twice risen upon the under generation, he would have to wait till a third day before he received that assurance: and this contradicts what is afterwards said of to-morrow. SCENE III.] 403 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. ISAB. The better, given me by so holy a man. Hath yet the deputy sent my brother's pardon? DUKE. He hath releas'd him, Isabel, from the world; His head is off, and sent to Angelo. ISAB. Nay, but it is not so. DUKE. It is no other : Show your wisdom, daughter, in your close patience. ISAB. O, I will to him, and pluck out his eyes. DUKE. You shall not be admitted to his sight. ISAB. Unhappy Claudio! Wretched Isabel! Injurious world! Most damned Angelo! DUKE. This nor hurts him nor profits you a jot; Forbear it therefore; give your cause to heaven. Mark what I say; which you shall find, By every syllable, a faithful verity: The duke comes home to-morrow;-nay, dry your eyes; One of our convent, and his confessor, Gives me this instance: Already he hath carried Notice to Escalus and Angelo ; Who do prepare to meet him at the gates, There to give up their power. If you can, pace your wisdom In that good path that I would wish it go ; And a you shall have your bosom on this wretch, Grace of the duke, revenges to your heart, And general honour. ISAB. I am directed by you. DUKE. This letter then to Friar Peter give; "Tis that he sent me of the duke's return : Say, by this token, I desire his company At Mariana's house to-night. Her cause, and yours, I'll perfect him withal: and he shall bring you Before the duke; and to the head of Angelo Accuse him home, and home. For my poor self, I am combined b by a sacred vow, And shall be absent. Wend you with this letter: Command these fretting waters from your eyes With a light heart; trust not my holy order, If I pervert your course.-Who's here? Friar, where is the provost? LUCIO. DUKE. Enter LUCIO. Good even! Not within, sir. LUCIO. O, pretty Isabella, I am pale at mine heart, to see thine eyes so red : a Bosom-wish-heart's desire. b Combined-bound. 404 [ACT IV. MEASURE FOR MEASURE. thou must be patient: I am fain to dine and sup with water and bran; I dare not for my head fill my belly; one fruitful meal would set me to 't: But they say the duke will be here to-morrow. By my troth, Isabel, I loved thy brother: if the old fantastical duke of dark corners had been at home, he had lived. [Exit ISABELLA. DUKE. Sir, the duke is marvellous little beholden to your reports; but the best is, he lives not in them. Lucio. Friar, thou knowest not the duke so well as I do: he's a better wood- man than thou takest him for. Fare ye well. DUKE. Well, you'll answer this one day. LUCIO. Nay, tarry; I'll go along with thee; I can tell thee pretty tales of the duke. DUKE. You have told me too many of him already, sir, if they be true; if not true, none were enough. LUCIO. I was once before him for getting a wench with child. DUKE. Did you such a thing? Lucio. Yes, marry, did I: but I was fain to forswear it; they would else have married me to the rotten medlar. DUKE. Sir, your company is fairer than honest: Rest you well. LUCIO. By my troth, I'll go with thee to the lane's end: If bawdy talk offend you, we'll have very little of it. Nay, friar, I am a kind of burr, I shall stick. [Exeunt. SCENE IV.—A Room in Angelo's House. Enter ANGELO and Escalus. ESCAL. Every letter he hath writ hath disvouched other. ANG. In most uneven and distracted manner. His actions show much like to madness: pray heaven, his wisdom be not tainted! And why meet him at the gates, and re-deliver our authorities there? ESCAL. I guess not. ANG. And why should we proclaim it in an hour before his entering, that, if any crave redress of injustice, they should exhibit their petitions in the street? ESCAL. He shows his reason for that: to have a despatch of complaints; and to deliver us from devices hereafter, which shall then have no power to stand against us. ANG. Well, I beseech you, let it be proclaim'd: Betimes i' the morn, I'll call you at your house Give notice to such men of sort and suit, As are to meet him. ESCAL. ANG. Good night,- I shall, sir: fare you well This deed unshapes me quite, makes me unpregnant, And dull to all proceedings. A deflower'd maid! [Exit. SCENE VI.] 405 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. And by an eminent body, that enforc'd The law against it!-But that her tender shame Will not proclaim against her maiden loss, How might she tongue me! Yet reason dares her No ª ; For my authority bears of a credent bulk ↳, That no particular scandal once can touch, b But it confounds the breather. He should have liv'd, Save that his riotous youth, with dangerous sense, Might, in the times to come, have ta'en revenge, By so receiving a dishonour'd life, With ransom of such shame. 'Would yet he had liv'd ! Alack, when once our grace we have forgot, Nothing goes right; we would, and we would not. SCENE V.-Fields without the Town. Enter DUKE in his own habit, and Friar PETER. DUKE. These letters at fit time deliver me. The provost knows our purpose, and our plot. The matter being afoot, keep your instruction, And hold you ever to our special drift; Though sometimes you do blench from this to that, As cause doth minister. Go, call at Flavius' house, And tell him where I stay: give the like notice To Valentinus, Rowland, and to Crassus, And bid them bring the trumpets to the gate; But send me Flavius first. F. PETER. [Exit. [Giving letters. It shall be speeded well. [Exit Friar. Enter VARRIUS. DUKE. I thank thee, Varrius; thou hast made good haste: Come, we will walk : There 's other of our friends Will greet us here anon, my gentle Varrius. SCENE VI.—Street near the City Gate. Enter ISABELLA and MARIANA. ISAB. To speak so indirectly I am loth; I would say the truth; but to accuse him so, That is your part: yet I am advis'd to do it; a Reason, which is here personified, dares her with the no which forbids her to speak. [Exeunt. This is ordinarily printed "bears off a credent bulk." We follow the original: bears is used in the sense of figures,-is seen. COMEDIES.-VOL. II. EE 406 [ACT 1V. MEASURE FOR MEASURE. Be rul'd by him. He says, to veil full purpose ª. MARI. ISAB. Besides, he tells me, that, if peradventure He speak against me on the adverse side, I should not think it strange; for 't is a physic That's bitter to sweet end. MARI. I would, friar Peter- ISAB. O, peace; the friar is come. Enter Friar PETER. F. PETER. Come, I have found you out a stand most fit, Where you may have such vantage on the duke, He shall not pass you: Twice have the trumpets sounded; The generous and gravest citizens b Have hent the gates, and very near upon The duke is ent'ring; therefore, hence, away. a To veil full purpose-to conceal the whole extent of his purpose. Generous is here used in its Latin sense. b [Exeunt. 1.JACKSON. [Fields without the Town. Scene V.] JACKUSYŠI ACT V. SCENE I.—A public Place near the City Gate. MARIANA (veiled), ISABELLA, and PETER, at a distance. Enter at opposite sides, DUKE, VARRIUS, Lords; ANGELO, ESCALUS, LUCIO, Provost, Officers, and Citizens. DUKE. My very worthy cousin, fairly met :- Our old and faithful friend, we are glad to see you. ANG. & ESCAL. Happy return be to your royal grace! DUKE. Many and hearty thankings to you both. We have made inquiry of you; and we hear Such goodness of your justice, that our soul Cannot but yield you forth to public thanks, Forerunning more requital. ANG. You make my bonds still greater. DUKE. O, your desert speaks loud; and I should wrong it, To lock it in the wards of covert bosom, When it deserves with characters of brass A forted residence, 'gainst the tooth of time, EE 2 408 [ACT V. MEASURE FOR MEASURE. And razure of oblivion. Give me your hand, And let the subject see, to make them know That outward courtesies would fain proclaim Favours that keep within.-Come, Escalus; You must walk by us on our other hand; And good supporters are you. PETER and ISABELLA come forward. F. PETER. Now is your time; speak loud, and kneel before him ISAB. Justice, O royal duke! Vail your regard a Upon a wrong'd, I would fain have said, a maid! O worthy prince, dishonour not your eye By throwing it on any other object, Till you have heard me in my true complaint, And given me justice, justice, justice, justice! DUKE. Relate your wrongs: In what? By whom? Be brief. Here is lord Angelo shall give you justice! Reveal yourself to him. ISAB. O, worthy duke, You bid me seek redemption of the devil: Hear me yourself; for that which I must speak Must either punish me, not being believ'd, Or wring redress from you: hear me, O, hear me, here. ANG. My lord, her wits, I fear me, are not firm : She hath been a suitor to me for her brother, Cut off by course of justice! ISAB. By course of justice! ANG. And she will speak most bitterly and strange. ISAB. Most strange, but yet most truly, will I speak : That Angelo 's forsworn; is it not strange? That Angelo 's a murtherer; is 't not strange? That Angelo is an adulterous thief, An hypocrite, a virgin-violator; Is it not strange, and strange? DUKE. ISAB. It is not truer he is Angelo, Nay, it is ten times strange Than this is all as true as it is strange; Nay, it is ten times true; for truth is truth To the end of reckoning. DUKE. Away with her;--Poor soul, She speaks this in the infirmity of sense. ISAB. O prince, I conjure thee, as thou believ'st There is another comfort than this world, That thou neglect me not, with that opinion a Vail-lower. SCENE 1.] 409 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. That I am touch'd with madness; make not impossible That which but seems unlike: 't is not impossible But one, the wicked'st caitiff on the ground, May seem as shy, as grave, as just, as absolute, As Angelo; even so may Angelo, In all his dressings, characts, titles, forms, Be an arch-villain; believe it, royal prince, If he be less, he 's nothing; but he 's more, Had I more name for badness. DUKE. By mine honesty, If she be mad, as I believe no other, Her madness hath the oddest frame of sense, (Such a dependency of thing on thing,) As e'er I heard in madnessb. ISAB. O, gracious duke, Harp not on that: nor do not banish reason For inequality; but let your reason serve To make the truth appear where it seems hid; And hide the false seems trued. DUKE. Many that are not mad, Have, sure, more lack of reason.—What would you say? ISAB. I am the sister of one Claudio, Condemn'd upon the act of fornication To lose his head; condemn'd by Angelo: I, in probation of a sisterhood, Was sent to by my brother: One Lucio As then the messenger;- LUCIO. That 's I, an 't like your grace : I came to her from Claudio, and desir'd her To try her gracious fortune with lord Angelo, For her poor brother's pardon. ISAB. DUKE. You were not bid to speak. LUCIO. Nor wish'd to hold my peace. That 's he, indeed. No, my good lord; a Characts-inscriptions-official designations. It has been proposed to read "as ne'er I heard in madness;" but in the mode in which we have pointed the sentence the emendation suggested is unnecessary. с • Johnson has supposed that inequality refers to the unequal position of the accuser and the ac- cused; but it appears to us obvious that Isabella reverts to the Duke's previous speech, where the conditions of madness are so clearly defined-unreasonable thoughts surrounded by "the oddest frame of sense." Shakspere's metaphysical subtlety enabled him to define madness with perfect accuracy. Inferior philosophers confound aberration of mind and fatuity. d Malone interprets this in a manner which appears to us singularly forced:-" For ever hide, that is plunge into eternal darkness, the false one, Angelo, who now seems honest." Looking to the elliptical construction which prevails in this play, the meaning appears to be, clearly enough, -draw the truth from obscurity, and obscure the false which now seems true. 410 [ACT V. MEASURE FOR MEASURE. DUKE. I wish you now then; Pray you, take note of it: and when you have A business for yourself, pray heaven, you then Be perfect. LUCIO. I warrant your honour. DUKE. The warrant 's for yourself; take heed to it. ISAB. This gentleman told somewhat of my tale. LUCIO. Right. DUKE. It may be right; but you are in the wrong To speak before your time.-Proceed. ISAB. To this pernicious caitiff deputy. DUKE. That's somewhat madly spoken. ISAB. The phrase is to the matter. I went Pardon it; DUKE. Mended again: the matter:-Proceed. ISAB. In brief,—to set the needless process by, How I persuaded, how I pray'd, and kneel'd, How he refell'da me, and how I replied; (For this was of much length,) the vile conclusion I now begin with grief and shame to utter: He would not, but by gift of my chaste body To his concupiscible intemperate lust, Release my brother; and, after much debatement, My sisterly remorse confutes mine honour, And I did yield to him: But the next morn betimes, His purpose surfeiting, he sends a warrant For my poor brother's head. DUKE. b This is most likely ! ISAB. O, that it were as like as it is true! DUKE. By heaven, fond wretch, thou know'st not what thou speak’st; Or else thou art suborn'd against his honour, In hateful practice: First, his integrity Stands without blemish :-next, it imports no reason, That with such vehemency he should pursue Faults proper to himself: if he had so offended, He would have weigh'd thy brother by himself, And not have cut him off: Some one hath set you on; Confess the truth, and say by whose advice Thou cam'st here to complain. ISAB. And is this all? Then, oh, you blessed ministers above, Keep me in patience; and, with ripen'd time, a Refell'd-refuted. C Like is here used in the sense of probable. Practice-craft, subornation. SCENE I.] 411 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. Unfold the evil which is here wrapp'd up In countenanceª!—Heaven shield your grace from woe, As I, thus wrong'd, hence unbelieved go! DUKE. I know you 'd fain be gone :-An officer! To prison with her:-Shall we thus permit. A blasting and a scandalous breath to fall On him so near us? This needs must be a practice. Who knew of your intent, and coming hither? ISAB. One that I would were here, friar Lodowick. DUKE. A ghostly father, belike: Who knows that Lodowick? Lucro. My lord, I know him; 't is a meddling friar. I do not like the man: had he been lay, my lord, For certain words he spake against your grace In your retirement, I had swing'd him soundly. DUKE. Words against me? This is a good friar, belike! And to set on this wretched woman here Against our substitute !-Let this friar be found. LUCIO. But yesternight, my lord, she and that friar, I saw them at the prison: a saucy friar, A very scurvy fellow. F. PETER. Blessed be your royal grace! I have stood by, my lord, and I have heard Your royal ear abus'd: First, hath this woman Most wrongfully accus'd your substitute ; Who is as free from touch or soil with her, As she from one ungot. DUKE. We did believe no less. Know you that friar Lodowick that she speaks of? F. PETER. I know him for a man divine and holy; Not scurvy, nor a temporary meddler, As he 's reported by this gentleman; And, on my trust, a man that never yet Did, as he vouches, misreport your grace. LUCIO. My lord, most villainously; believe it. F. PETER. Well, he in time may come to clear himself; But at this instant he is sick, my lord, Of a strange fever: Upon his mere© request, (Being come to knowledge that there was complaint Intended 'gainst lord Angelo,) came I hither, To speak, as from his mouth, what he doth know Is true, and false; and what he with his oath, And all probation, will make up full clear, a Countenance-false appearance. ⚫ Lucio had denounced the "ghostly father" as a meddling friar;" he is here defended as one that does not meddle with passing events. • Mere-sole-unmixed-absolute. 412 [ACT V. MEASURE FOR MEASURE. Whensoever he 's convented. First, for this woman; (To justify this worthy nobleman, So vulgarlya and personally accus'd,) Her shall you hear disproved to her eyes, Till she herself confess it. DUKE. Good friar, let 's hear it. [ISABELLA is carried off, guarded; and MARIANA comes forward. Do you not smile at this, lord Angelo?— O heaven! the vanity of wretched fools! Give us some seats.-Come, cousin Angelo; In this I 'll be impartial; be you judge Of your own cause. Is this the witness, friar? First, let her show her face; and, after, speak. MARI. Pardon, my lord; I will not show my face, Until my husband bid me. DUKE. What, are you married? MARI. No, my lord. DUKE. Are you a maid ? MARI. No, my lord. DUKE. A widow then? MARI. Neither, my lord. DUKE. Why, you Are nothing then :-Neither maid, widow, nor wife? LUCIO. My lord, she may be a punk; for many of them are neither maid, widow, nor wife. DUKE. Silence that fellow: I would he had some cause To prattle for himself. LUCIO. Well, my lord. MARI. My lord, I do confess I ne'er was married; And, I confess, besides, I am no maid: I have known my husband; yet my husband knows not, That ever he knew me, LUCIO. He was drunk then, my lord; it can be no better. DUKE. For the benefit of silence, would thou wert so too! LUCIO. Well, my lord. DUKE. This is no witness for lord Angelo. MARI. Now I come to 't my lord: She, that accuses him of fornication, In self-same manner doth accuse my husband; And charges him, my lord, with such a time, When I'll depose I had him in mine arms, a Vulgarly-publicly. ↳ Impartial. Im was frequently used as an augmentative particle; and the meaning therefore is very partial. We have the same sense in the early copy of Romeo and Juliet:' Cruel, unjust, impartial destinies.” SCENE I.] 413 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. With all the effect of love. ANG. MARI. Not that I know. DUKE. Charges she more than me? No? you say, your husband. MARI. Why, just, my lord, and that is Angelo, Who thinks he knows that he ne'er knew my body, But knows he thinks that he knows Isabel's. ANG. This is a strange abuse:-Let's see thy face. MARI. My husband bids me; now I will unmask. This is that face, thou cruel Angelo, Which once thou swor'st was worth the looking on : This is the hand which, with a vow'd contract, Was fast belock'd in thine: this is the body That took away the match from Isabel, And did supply thee at thy garden-house, In her imagin'd person. DUKE. LUCIO. Carnally, she says. DUKE. LUCIO. Enough, my lord. Know you this woman? Sirrah, no more. ANG. My lord, I must confess I know this woman: And, five years since, there was some speech of marriage Betwixt myself and her; which was broke off, Partly, for that her promised proportions Came short of compositiona; but, in chief, For that her reputation was disvalued In levity since which time of five years, I never spake with her, saw her, nor heard from her, Upon my faith and honour. MARI. Noble prince, As there comes light from heaven, and words from breath, As there is sense in truth, and truth in virtue, I am affianc'd this man's wife, as strongly As words could make up vows: and, my good lord, But Tuesday night last gone, in his garden-house, He knew me as a wife: As this is true Let me in safety raise me from my knees; Or else for ever be confixed here, A marble monument ! ANG. I did but smile till now; Now, good my lord, give me the scope of justice; My patience here is touch'd: I do perceive, These poor informal ↳ women are no more b But instruments of some more mightier member, a Composition-agreement. b Informal-without sense. [Unveiling. A 414 [ACT V. MEASURE FOR MEASURE That sets them on: Let me have way, my lord, To find this practice out. DUKE. Ay, with my heart; And punish them unto your height of pleasure.- Thou foolish friar; and thou pernicious woman, Compact with her that 's gone! think'st thou, thy oaths, Though they would swear down each particular saint, Were testimonies against his worth and credit, That's seal'd in approbation ?—You, lord Escalus, Sit with my cousin; lend him your kind pains To find out this abuse, whence 't is derived: There is another friar that set them on; Let him be sent for. F. PETER. Would he were here, my lord; for he, indeed, Hath set the women on to this complaint: Your provost knows the place where he abides, And he may fetch him. DUKE. Go, do it instantly.- And you, my noble and well-warranted cousin, Whom it concerns to hear this matter forth, Do with your injuries as seems you best, In any chastisement: I for a while Will leave you; but stir not you, till you have Well determin'd upon these slanderers. ESCAL. My lord, we 'll do it thoroughly.- [Exit Provost. [Exit DUKE. Signior Lucio, did not you say you knew that friar Lodowick to be a dis- honest person? LUCIO. Cucullus non facit monachum: honest in nothing, but in his clothes; and one that hath spoke most villainous speeches of the duke. ESCAL. We shall entreat you to abide here till he come, and enforce them against him: we shall find this friar a notable fellow. LUCIO. As any in Vienna, on my word. ESCAL. Call that same Isabel here once again [to an Attendant]; I would speak with her: Pray you, my lord, give me leave to question; you shall see how I'll handle her. LUCIO. Not better than he, by her own report. ESCAL. Say you? LUCIO. Marry, sir, I think if you handled her privately, she would sooner con- fess perchance, publicly she 'll be ashamed. Re-enter Officers, with ISABELLA; the DUKE, in the Friar's habit, and Provost. ESCAL. I will go darkly to work with her. LUCIO. That's the way; for women are light at midnight. ESCAL. Come on, mistress [to ISABELLA]: here's a gentlewoman denies all that you have said. SCENE I.] 415 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. LUCIO. My lord, here comes the rascal I spoke of; here with the provost. ESCAL. In very good time :-speak not you to him, till we call upon you. LUCIO. Mum. ESCAL. Come, sir: Did you set these women on to slander lord Angelo? they have confessed you did. DUKE. 'Tis false. ESCAL. HOW! know you where you are? DUKE. Respect to your great place! and let the devil Be sometime honour'd for his burning throne :— Where is the duke? 't is he should hear me speak. ESCAL. The duke 's in us; and we will hear you speak: Look you speak justly. DUKE. Boldly, at least: But, O, poor souls, Come you to seek the lamb here of the fox? Good night to your redress. Then is your cause gone too. Is the duke gone? The duke 's unjust Thus to retort your manifest appeal, And put your trial in the villain's mouth, Which here you come to accuse. LUCIO. This is the rascal; this is he I spoke of. ESCAL. Why, thou unreverend and unhallow'd friar Is 't not enough thou hast suborn'd these women, To accuse this worthy man? but, in foul mouth, And in the witness of his proper ear, To call him villain? and then to glance from him To the duke himself, to tax him with injustice? Take him hence; to the rack with him :-We 'll touze you Joint by joint, but we will know his a What! unjust? DUKE. Be not so hot; the duke purpose: Dare no more stretch this finger of mine, than he Dare rack his own; his subject am I not, Nor here provincial: My business in this state Made me a looker-on here in Vienna, Where I have seen corruption boil and bubble, Till it o'errun the stew laws, for all faults; But faults so countenanc'd, that the strong statutes Stand like the forfeits in a barber's shop, As much in mock as mark. ESCAL. Slander to the state! Away with him to prison. ANG. What can you vouch against him, signior Lucio? Is this the man that you did tell us of? a His. So the original copy, but generally printed this. Boswell very sensibly says that, after having threatened the supposed friar, "We'll touze you joint by joint," Escalus addresses the close of the sentence to the bystanders. 416 [ACT V. MEASURE FOR MEASURE. LUCIO. "Tis he, my lord. Come hither, goodman baldpate: Do you know me? DUKE. I remember you, sir, by the sound of your voice: I met you at the prison, in the absence of the duke. LUCIO. O did you so? And do you remember what you said of the duke? DUKE. Most notedly, sir. LUCIO. Do you so, sir? And was the duke a flesh-monger, a fool, and a coward, as you then reported him to be? DUKE. You must, sir, change persons with me, ere you make that my report : you, indeed, spoke so of him; and much more, much worse. LUCIO. O thou damnable fellow! Did not I pluck thee by the nose for thy speeches? DUKE. I protest I love the duke, as I love myself. ANG. Hark! how the villain would close now, after his treasonable abuses. ESCAL. Such a fellow is not to be talked withal:-Away with him to prison: Where is the provost ?-Away with him to prison; lay bolts enough upon him: let him speak no more:-Away with those giglotsa too, and with the other confederate companion. [The Provost lays hands on the DUKE. DUKE. Stay, sir; stay awhile. ANG. What! resists he? Help him, Lucio. LUCIO. Come, sir; come, sir; come, sir; foh, sir: Why, you bald-pated, lying rascal! you must be hooded, must you? Show your knave's visage, with a pox to you! show your sheepbiting face, and be hanged an hour! Will 't not off? [Pulls off the Friar's hood, and discovers the Duke. DUKE. Thou art the first knave that e'er made a duke.— First, provost, let me bail these gentle three :— Sneak not away, sir [to Lucio]; for the friar and you Must have a word anon :—lay hold on him. LUCIO. This may prove worse than hanging. DUKE. What you have spoke, I pardon; sit you down.- We 'll borrow place of him-Sir, by your leave Hast thou or word, or wit, or impudence, ANG. That yet can do thee office? If thou hast, Rely upon it till my tale be heard, And hold no longer out. O my dread lord, I should be guiltier than my guiltiness, To think I can be undiscernible, When I perceive your grace, like power divine, Hath look'd upon my passes. Then, good prince, No longer session hold upon my shame, a Giglots-wantons. So in 'King Henry VI., Part I.':- Young Talbot was not born To be the pillage of a giglot wench.' "" [To ESCALUS. [To ANGELO. b Passes has been explained as devices. We believe it is used in the same sense as the somewhat obsolete word passages. SCENE I.] 417 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. But let my trial be mine own confession : Immediate sentence then, and sequent death, Is all the grace I beg. DUKE. Come hither, Mariana : Say, wast thou e'er contracted to this woman? ANG. I was, my lord. DUKE. Go take her hence, and marry her, instantly.- Do you the office, friar; which consummate, Return him here again :-Go with him, provost. [Exeunt ANGELO, MARIANA, PETER, and Provost. ESCAL. My lord, I am more amaz'd at his dishonour, Than at the strangeness of it. DUKE. Come hither, Isabel: Your friar is now your prince: As I was then Advertising, and holy to your business, Not changing heart with habit, I am still Attorney'd at your service ISAB. O give me pardon, That I, your vassal, have employ'd and pain'd Your unknown sovereignty. DUKE. You are pardon'd, Isabel: And now, dear maid, be you as free to us. Your brother's death, I know, sits at your heart; And you may marvel, why I obscur'd myself, Labouring to save his life; and would not rather Make rash remonstrance of my hidden power, Than let him so be lost: O, most kind maid, It was the swift celerity of his death, Which I did think with slower foot came on, That brain'd my purpose: But peace be with him! That life is better life, past fearing death, Than that which lives to fear: make it your comfort, So happy is your brother. ISAB. Re-enter ANGELO, MARIANA, PETER, and Provost. I do, my lord. DUKE. For this new-married man, approaching here, Whose salt imagination yet hath wrong'd Your well-defended honour, you must pardon For Mariana's sake: but as he adjudg'd your brother, (Being criminal, in double violation Of sacred chastity, and of promise-breach Thereon dependent, for your brother's life,) The very mercy of the law cries out Most audible, even from his proper tongue, 418 [ACT V. MEASURE FOR MEASURE. An Angelo for Claudio, death for death. Haste still pays haste, and leisure answers leisure ; Like doth quit like, and Measure still for Measure. Then, Angelo, thy fault 's thus manifested: Which, though thou wouldst deny, denies thee vantage: We do condemn thee to the very block Where Claudio stoop'd to death, and with like haste ; Away with him. MARI. O, my most gracious lord, I hope you will not mock me with a husband! DUKE. It is your husband mock'd you with a husband: Consenting to the safeguard of your honour, I thought your marriage fit; else imputation, For that he knew you, might reproach your life, And choke your good to come: for his possessions, Although by confiscation a they are ours, We do instate and widow you withal, To buy you a better husband. MARI. O, my dear lord, I crave no other, nor no better man. DUKE. Never crave him; we are definitive. MARI. Gentle my liege,- DUKE. You do but lose your labour; Away with him to death.-Now, sir [to LUCIO], to you. MARI. O, my good lord!—Sweet Isabel, take my part; Lend me your knees, and all my life to come I'll lend you all my life to do you service. DUKE. Against all sense you do importune her: Should she kneel down, in mercy of this fact, Her brother's ghost his paved bed would break, And take her hence in horror. MARI. Isabel, Sweet Isabel, do yet but kneel by me; Hold up your hands, say nothing, I 'll speak all. They say, best men are moulded out of faults; And, for the most, become much more the better For being a little bad: so may my husband. O, Isabel! will you not lend a knee? DUKE. He dies for Claudio's death. ISAB. [Kneeling. Most bounteous sir, [Kneeling. Look, if it please you, on this man condemn'd, As if my brother liv'd; I partly think, A due sincerity govern'd his deeds, Till he did look on me; since it is so, Confiscation. This is the reading of the second folio; the original has confutation. SCENE I.] 419 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. Let him not die: My brother had but justice In that he did the thing for which he died : For Angelo, His act did not o'ertake his bad intent; And must be buried but as an intent That perish'd by the way: thoughts are no subjects; Intents but merely thoughts. MARI. Merely, my lord. DUKE. Your suit 's unprofitable; stand up, I say.- I have bethought me of another fault: Provost, how came it Claudio was beheaded At an unusual hour? PROV. It was commanded so. DUKE. Had you a special warrant for the deed? PROV. No, my good lord; it was by private message. DUKE. For which I do discharge you of your office: Give up your keys. PROV. Pardon me, noble lord : I thought it was a fault, but knew it not; Yet did repent me, after more advice: For testimony whereof, one in the prison, That should by private order else have died, I have reserv'd alive. DUKE. PROV. What's he? His name is Barnardine. DUKE. I would thou hadst done so by Claudio.- Go, fetch him hither: let me look upon him. ESCAL. I am sorry, one so learned and so wise As you, lord Angelo, have still appear'd, Should slip so grossly, both in the heat of blood, And lack of temper'd judgment afterward. ANG. I am sorry that such sorrow I procure: And so deep sticks it in my penitent heart, That I crave death more willingly than mercy; 'T is my deserving, and I do entreat it. Re-enter Provost, BARNARDINE, CLAUDIO, and JULIET. DUKE. Which is this Barnardine? This my lord. PROV. DUKE. There was a friar told me of this man:- Sirrah, thou art said to have a stubborn soul, That apprehends no further than this world, And squar'st thy life according. Thou 'rt condemn'd; But, for those earthly faults, I quit them all; And pray thee, take this mercy to provide [Exit Provost. 420 [ACT V. MEASURE FOR MEASURE. For better times to come :-Friar, advise him; I leave him to your hand.-What muffled fellow 's that? PROV. This is another prisoner that I sav'd, That should have died when Claudio lost his head; As like almost to Claudio, as himself. [Unmuffles CLAUDIO. DUKE. If he be like your brother [to ISABELLA], for his sake Is he pardon'd: And, for your lovely sake, Give me your hand, and say you will be mine; He is my brother too: But fitter time for that. By this, lord Angelo perceives he 's safe; Methinks, I see a quick'ning in his eye- Well, Angelo, your evil quits a you well: Look that you love your wife; her worth, worth yours.— I find an apt remission in myself: And yet here 's one in place I cannot pardon:- You, sirrah [to LUCIO], that knew me for a fool, a coward, One all of luxury, an ass, a madman ; Wherein have I so deserv'd of you, That you extol me thus ? LUCIO. 'Faith, my lord, I spoke it but according to the trick: If you will hang me for it, you may, but I had rather it would please you I might be whipped. DUKE. Whipp'd first, sir, and hang'd after. Proclaim it, provost, round about the city; If any woman 's wrong'd by this lewd fellow, (As I have heard him swear himself there's one Whom he begot with child,) let her appear, And he shall marry her: the nuptial finish'd, Let him be whipp'd and hang'd. Lucio. I beseech your highness, do not marry me to a whore! Your highness said even now, I made you a duke; good my lord, do not recompense me in making me a cuckold. DUKE. Upon mine honour, thou shalt marry her. Thy slanders I forgive; and therewithal Remit thy other forfeits :-Take him to prison : And see our pleasure herein executed. LUCIO. Marrying a punk, my lord, is pressing to death, whipping, and hanging. DUKE. Slandering a prince deserves it.- She, Claudio, that you wrong'd, look you restore. Joy to you, Mariana!—love her, Angelo; I have confess'd her, and I know her virtue. Thanks, good friend Escalus, for thy much goodness: a Quits-requites. According to the trick is not, as Johnson interprets it, according to the habitual practice of the speaker; but after the fashion of banter and exaggeration, which was thought to be as much an indication of cleverness in Shakspere's time as in ours. SCENE I.] 421 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. There's more behind that is more gratulateª. Thanks, provost, for thy care and secrecy ; We shall employ thee in a worthier place:- Forgive him, Angelo, that brought you home The head of Ragozine for Claudio's; The offence pardons itself.-Dear Isabel, I have a motion much imports your good; Whereto if you 'll a willing ear incline, What's mine is yours, and what is yours is mine: So, bring us to our palace; where we'll show What's yet behind, that's meet you all should know. a More gratulate-more to be rejoiced in. [Exeunt. COMEDIES.-VOL. II. ["Unscour'd armour, hung by the wall." j F F ILLUSTRATIONS. ACT I. 1 SCENE II. “LUCIO. I think thou never wast where grace was said. 2 GENT. No? a dozen times at least. 1 GENT. What? in metre?" THERE can be no doubt that in metre can have no other reference than to the ancient metrical graces, to be said or sung,-sometimes accom- panied by some old monastic chant, such as we still hear in Non nobis, Domine. Tieck has, however, a singular crotchet upon this passage. He holds that the explanation thus given is nonsense; and that the allusion is to Jonson's favourite tavern, the Mitre, in a poor resem- blance between the words metre and mitre. We subjoin a drawing of an ancient knife, upon the blade of which a Latin metrical grace is en- graved, with the notes to which it was to be sung. This very curious specimen of ancient musical taste is to be found among the miscel- laneous collection of early French antiquities preserved in the Louvre. The blade of the knife is of steel, upon which is engraved the "Blessing of the Table," or Grace before Meat, which may be literally translated thus :-"What we are about to take, may Trinity in Unity bless. Amen." This is accompanied by the musical notes of the bass part only, so that there must have been a set of four or five knives, upon each. of which the other parts necessary to make the composition complete were engraved. 2 SCENE IV. “Even like an o'ergrown lion in a cave, That goes not out to prey.” The passage in the Book of Job, chap. iv. ver. 11, probably suggested this image old lion perisheth for lack of prey." "The sm}}×૧ Amen Benedictio menfæ. Quæ fumpturi fumus benedicat trinus et vnus HI ILITI SCENE I.] 423 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. ACT II. 3_SCENE I." They are not China dishes, but very good dishes.” In the first scene of Massinger's 'Renegado,' the servant of the disguised Venetian gentle- man tells his master that his wares " Are safe unladen; not a crystal crack'd, Or China dish needs soldering." China dishes were not uncommon things in the days of Elizabeth and James. We captured them on board the Spanish carracks; and we purchased them from Venice. posed a duty on China dishes, so that they had in his time become a regular article of com- merce. Cromwell im- 424 [ACT III. ILLUSTRATIONS, ACT III. 4 SCENE I.-"Merely, thou art death's fool.” CERIMON, the good physician in 'Pericles,' says that the study and practice of the healing art afford "A more content in course of true delight Than to be thirsty after tottering honour, Or tie my treasure up in silken bags, To please the fool and death." In both these passages there is undoubtedly an allusion to certain ancient representations of Death and the Fool. It has been clearly shown that Warburton was mistaken in asserting that these characters occurred in the old Moralities. The idea was probably suggested to Shakspere by some of the celebrated engravings of the Dance of Death,' with which he must have been familiar. In Stowe's 'Survey of London,' 1618, there is an initial letter exhibiting a con- test between Death and the Fool, which Mr. Douce says is copied from one of a set of ini- tials used by the Basil printers in the sixteenth century. Of this the cut above is a fac-simile. 5 SCENE I.-"For all thy blessed youth," &c. Warburton proposed a singular emendation of this passage :— "For pall'd, thy blazed youth Becomes assuaged.” Probably the original idea, or the critic's re- finement on it, suggested Byron's exquisite "Stanzas for Music : "" "There's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away, When the glow of early thought declines in feeling's dull decay: 'T is not on youth's smooth cheek the blush alone, which fades so fast, But the tender bloom of heart is gone, ere youth itself be past. "Then the few, whose spirits float above the wreck of happiness, Are driven o'er the shoals of guilt or ocean of excess: The magnet of their course is gone, or only points in vain The shore to which their shiver'd sail shall never stretch again. "Then the mortal coldness of the soul like death itself comes down; It cannot feel for others' woes, it dare not dream its own; That heavy chill has frozen o'er the fountain of our tears, And though the eye may sparkle still, 't is where the ice appears. "Though wit may flash from fluent lips, and mirth distract the breast, Through midnight hours that yield no more their former hope of rest; 'T is but as ivy-leaves around the ruin'd turret wreath, All green and wildly fresh without, but worn and gray beneath. "Oh! could I feel as I have felt,-or be what I have been,- Or weep, as I could once have wept, o'er many a vanish'd scene; As springs in deserts found seem sweet, all brackish though they be, So, 'midst the wither'd waste of life, those tears would flow to me." SCENE I.] 425 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. • SCENE I. "The poor beetle that we tread upon, In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great As when a giant dies.” These lines, taken apart from the context, would indicate that the bodily pain, such as is attended with death, is felt with equal severity by a giant and a beetle. The physiologists tell us that this is not true; and that the nervous sys- tem of a beetle does not allow it to feel pain so acutely as that of a man. We hope this is cor- rect; but we are not sure that Shakspere meant to refine quite so much as the entomologists are desirous to believe. "It is somewhat amusing,” says a writer in the 'Entomological Magazine,’ "that his words should, in this case, be entirely wrested from their original purpose. His pur- pose was to show how little a man feels in dying; that the sense of death is most in ap- prehension, not in the act; and that even a beetle, which feels so little, feels as much as a giant does. The less, therefore, the beetle is supposed to feel, the more force we give to the sentiment of Shakspere." 7 SCENE I.—“At the moated grange resides this dejected Mariana.” We have before alluded to Mr. Tennyson's poem, in which the idea of loneliness and deso- lation, suggested by these simple words of Shakspere, is worked out with the most strik- ing effect. We have now great pleasure in ex- tracting these beautiful verses, which have been described as exhibiting "the power of creating scenery in keeping with some state of human feeling, so fitted to it as to be the embodied symbol of it, and to summon up the state of feeling itself with a force not to be surpassed by anything but reality.' " a "With blackest moss the flower-pots Were thickly crusted, one and all; The rusted nails fell from the knots That held the peach to the garden-wall. The broken sheds look'd sad and strange, Unlifted was the clinking latch, Weeded and worn the ancient thatch Upon the lonely moated grange. She only said, 'My life is dreary— He cometh not,' she said; She said, 'I am aweary, aweary; I would that I were dead!' "Her tears fell with the dews at even, Her tears fell ere the dews were dried; She could not look on the sweet heaven, Either at morn or eventide. a London Review,' July, 1835. After the flitting of the bats, When thickest dark did trance the sky, She drew her casement-curtain by, And glanc'd athwart the glooming flats. She only said, 'The night is dreary- He cometh not,' she said; She said, 'I am aweary, aweary; I would that I were dead!' "Upon the middle of the night, Waking she heard the night-fowl crow; The cock sung out an hour ere light : From the dark fen the oxen's low Came to her: without hope of change, In sleep she seem'd to walk forlorn, Till cold winds woke the gray-eyed morn About the lonely moated grange. She only said, 'The day is dreary— He cometh not,' she said; She said, 'I am aweary, aweary; I would that I were dead!' "About a stone-cast from the wall, A sluice with blacken'd waters slept, And o'er it many, round and small, The cluster'd marish mosses crept. Hard by a poplar shook alway, All silver-green with gnarled bark: For leagues no other tree did dark The level waste, the rounding gray. She only said, 'My life is dreary- He cometh not,' she said; She said, 'I am aweary, aweary; I would that I were dead!' "And ever when the moon was low, And the shrill winds were up an' away, In the white curtain, to and fro, She saw the gusty shadow sway. But when the moon was very low, And wild winds bound within their cell, The shadow of the poplar fell Upon her bed, across her brow. She only said, 'The night is dreary- He cometh not,' she said; She said, 'I am aweary, aweary; I would that I were dead!' "All day within the dreamy house The doors upon their hinges creak'd; The blue-fly sung i' the pane; the mouse Behind the mould'ring wainscot shriek'd, Or from the crevice peer'd about. Old faces glimmer'd through the doors, Old footsteps trod the upper floors, Old voices call'd her from without. She only said, ' My life is dreary- He cometh not,' she said; She said, 'I am aweary, aweary; I would that I were dead!' "The sparrow's chirrup on the roof, The slow clock ticking, and the sound Which to the wooing wind aloof The poplar made, did all confound Her sense; but most she loath'd the hour When the thick-moted sunbeam lay Athwart the chambers, and the day Down-slop'd was westering in his bower. Then said she, 'I am very dreary- He will not come,' she said; She wept, 'I am aweary, aweary; O God! that I were dead!'" 426 [ACT IV. ILLUSTRATIONS. ACT IV. 8 SCENE I.-" Take, oh, take those lips away." THIS charming lyric, as sung to Mariana, would appear perfect in itself, but from two circum- stances; first, Mariana says, "Break off thy song," which would lead one to infer that, as we find it in the text, it is not complete : secondly, we have the song, apparently com- plete, in the tragedy of 'Rollo Duke of Nor- mandy,' ascribed to Fletcher, and printed in Beaumont and Fletcher's works. We give the song as it stands in that play : "Take, oh, take those lips away, That so sweetly were forsworn, And those eyes, like break of day, Lights that do mislead the morn; But my kisses bring again, Seals of love, tho' seal'd in vain. "Hide, oh, hide those hills of snow, Which thy frozen bosom bears, On whose tops the pinks that grow Are yet of those that April wears; But first set my poor heart free, Bound in those icy chains by thee." The question then arises, is the song to be at- tributed to Shakspere or to Fletcher? Malone justly observes that all the songs introduced in our author's plays appear to have been his own composition. The idea in the line "Seals of love, but seal'd in vain,' is found in the 142nd Sonnet:- " "not from those lips of thine, That have profan'd their scarlet ornaments, And seal'd false bonds of love, as oft as mine." The image is also repeated in the 'Venus and Adonis.' Weber, the editor of Beaumont and Fletcher, is of opinion that the first stanza was Shakspere's, and that Fletcher added the second. There is no evidence, we apprehend, external or internal, by which the question can be settled. 9 SCENE III.-"He's in for a commodity of brown paper," &c. The old comedies are full of allusions to the him the name of the brown-paper merchant—of practice of the usurer-so notorious as to acquire stipulating to make his advance partly in money and partly in goods, which goods were some- times little more than packages of brown paper. The most minute description of these practices is given in a pamphlet by Nashe, published in 1594:-"He (a usurer) falls acquainted with gentlemen, frequents ordinaries and dining- houses daily, where, when some of them at play have lost all their money, he is very dili- gent at hand, on their chains and bracelets, or jewels, to lend them half the value. Now this is the nature of young gentlemen, that where they have broke the ice, and borrowed once, they will come again the second time; and that these young foxes know as well as the beg- gar knows his dish. But at the second time of their coming it is doubtful to say whether they shall have money or no. The world grows hard, and we are all mortal; let him make any assurance before a judge, and they shall have some hundred pounds per consequence, in silks and velvets. The third time if they come, they shall have baser commodities: the fourth time, lute-strings and gray paper." P. 22 A WINTER'S TALE. 77 JUNCKSON. - Uji 7s- INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. We have no edition of the 'Winter's Tale' prior to that of the folio of 1623; nor was it entered upon the registers of the Stationers' Company previous to the entry by the pro- prietors of the folio. The original text, which is divided into acts and scenes, is re- markably correct. The novel of Robert Greene, called 'Pan- dosto,' which Shakspere undoubtedly fol- lowed, with very few important deviations, in the construction of the plot of his 'Winter's Tale,' was a work of extraordinary popularity, there being fourteen editions known to exist. "In the country of Bohemia," says the novel, "there reigned a king called Pan- dosto." The Leontes of Shakspere is the Pandosto of Greene. The Polixenes of the play is Egistus in the novel :-"It so hap- pened that Egistus, King of Sicilia, who in his youth had been brought up with Pan- dosto, desirous to show that neither tract of time nor distance of place could diminish | their former friendship, provided a navy of ships and sailed into Bohemia to visit his old friend and companion." Here, then, we Here, then, we have the scene of the action reversed. The jealous king is of Bohemia-his injured friend of Sicilia. But the visitor sails into Bohemia. The most accomplished scholars of Shakspere's period purposely committed such apparent violations of propriety, when dealing with the legendary and romantic. The wife of Pandosto is Bellaria; and they have a young son called Garinter. Pandosto becomes jealous, slowly, and by degrees; and there is at least some want of caution in the queen to justify it. The great author of 'Othello' would not deal with jealousy after this fashion. He had already produced that immortal portrait "Of one, not easily jealous, but, being wrought, Perplex'd in the extreme." He had now to exhibit the distractions of a mind to which jealousy was native; to depict the terrible access of passion, uprooting in a moment all deliberation, all reason, all gentleness. The instant the idea enters the mind of Leontes the passion is at its height. The action of the novel and that of the | drama continue in a pretty equal course. Pandosto tampers with his cupbearer, Franion, to poison Egistus; and the cupbearer, terri- fied at the fearful commission, reveals the design to the object of his master's hatred. Eventually they escape together. Bellaria is committed to prison, where she gives birth to a daughter. The guard "carried the child to the king, who, quite devoid of pity, com- manded that without delay it should be put in the boat, having neither sail nor rudder to guide it, and so to be carried into the midst of the sea, and there left to the wind and wave as the destinies please to appoint." The queen appeals to the oracle of Apollo ; and certain lords are sent to Delphos, where they receive this decree:-"Suspicion is no proof: jealousy is an unequal judge: Bellaria is chaste; Egistus blameless: Franion a true subject; Pandosto treacherous: his babe in- nocent; and the king shall live without an heir, if that which is lost be not found." On their return, upon an appointed day, the queen was "brought in before the judgment- seat." Shakspere has followed a part of the tragical ending of this scene; but he pre- serves his injured Hermione, to be re-united to her daughter after years of solitude and suffering. The story of the preservation of the de- serted infant is prettily told in the novel. The infant is taken to the shepherd's home, and is brought up by his wife and himself under the name of Fawnia. In a narrative the lapse of sixteen years may occur without any violation of propriety. The changes are gradual. But in a drama, whose action de- pends upon a manifest lapse of time, there must be a sudden transition. Shakspere is perfectly aware of the difficulty; and he diminishes it by the introduction of Time as a Chorus :- "Impute it not a crime To me, or my swift passage, that I slide O'er sixteen years, and leave the growth untried Of that wide gap; since it is in my power To o'erthrow law, and in one self-born hour To plant and o'erwhelm custom." Shakspere has exhibited his consummate art in opening the fourth Act with Polixenes INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 429 and Camillo, of whom we have lost sight since the end of the first. Had it been otherwise, had he brought Autolycus, and Florizel, and Perdita, at once upon the scene, —the continuity of action would have been destroyed; and the commencement of the fourth Act would have appeared as the com- mencement of a new play. Shakspere made the difficulties of his plot bend to his art; instead of wanting art, as Ben Jonson says. Autolycus and the Clown prepare us for | Perdita; and when the third scene opens, what a beautiful vision lights upon this earth! There perhaps never was such a union of perfect simplicity and perfect grace as in the character of Perdita. What an exquisite idea of her mere personal appear- ance is presented in Florizel's rapturous ex- clamation,- "When you do dance, I wish you A wave o' the sea, that you might ever do Nothing but that." In the novel we have no trace of the inter- ! ruption by the father of the princely lover in the disguise of a guest at the shep- herd's cottage. Dorastus and Fawnia flee from the country without the knowledge of the king. The ship in which they embark is thrown by a storm upon the coast of Bo- hemia. Messengers are despatched in search of the lovers; and they arrive in Bohemia with the request of Egistus that the com- panions in the flight of Dorastus shall be put to death. The secret of Fawnia's birth is discovered by the shepherd; and her father recognises her. But the previous cir- cumstances exhibit as much grossness of con- ception on the part of the novelist, as the different management of the catastrophe shows the matchless skill and taste of the dramatist. We forgive Leontes for his early folly and wickedness; for during sixteen years has his remorse been bitter and his affection constant. " ["I bless the time When my good falcon made her flight across Thy father's ground.”—Act IV., Sc. 3.] G G 2 PERSONS REPRESENTED. LEONTES, King of Sicilia. Appears, Act I. sc. 2. Act II. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act III. sc. 2. Act V. sc. 1; sc. 3. MAMILLIUS, son to Leontes. Appears, Act I. sc. 2. Act II. sc. 1. CAMILLO, a Sicilian lord. Appears, Act I. sc. 1; sc. 2. Act IV. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act V. sc. 3. ANTIGONUS, a Sicilian lord. Appears, Act II. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act III. sc. 3. CLEOMENES, a Sicilian lord. Appears, Act III. sc. 1; sc. 2. Act V. sc. 1. DION, a Sicilian lord. Appears, Act III. sc. 1; sc. 2. Act V. sc. 1. A Sicilian Lord. Appears, Act II. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act III. sc. 2. ROGERO, a Sicilian gentleman. Appears, Act V. sc. 1. An Attendant on the young Prince Ma- millius. Appears, Act II. sc. 3. Officers of a Court of Judicature. Appear, Act III. sc. 2. POLIXENES, King of Bohemia. Appears, Act I. sc. 2. Act IV. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act V. sc. 3. FLORIZEL, Son to Polixenes. Appears, Act IV. sc. 3. Act V. sc. 1; sc. 3. ARCHIDAMUS, a Bohemian lord. Appears, Act I. sc. 1. A Mariner. Appears, Act III. sc. 3. Gaoler. Appears, Act II. sc. 2. An old Shepherd, reputed father of Perdita. Appears, Act III. sc. 3. Act IV. sc. 3. Act V. sc. 2. Clown, son to the old Shepherd. Appears, Act III. sc. 3. Act IV. sc. 2; sc. 3. Act V. sc. 2. AUTOLYCUS, a rogue. Appears, Act IV. sc. 2; sc. 3. Act V. sc. 2. Time, as Chorus. Appears, Act IV. HERMIONE, Queen to Leontes. Appears, Act I. sc. 2. Act II. sc. 1. Act III. sc. 2. Act V. sc. 3. PERDITA, daughter to Leontes and Her- mione. Appears, Act IV. sc. 3. Act V. sc. 1; sc. 3. PAULINA, wife to Antigonus. Appears, Act II. sc. 2; sc. 3. Act III. sc. 2. Act IV. sc. 1. Act V. sc. 3. EMILIA, a lady attending on the Queen. Appears, Act II. sc. 2. Two Ladies attending on the Queen. Appear, Act II. sc. 1. MOPSA, a shepherdess. Appears, Act IV. sc. 3. DORCAS, a shepherdess. Appears, Act IV. sc. 3. Lords, Ladies, and Attendants; Satyrs for a Dance; Shepherds, Shepherdesses, Guards, &c. SCENE, SOMETIMES IN SICILIA; SOMETIMES IN BOHEMIA. THOS MILJAMS "We were as twinn'd lambs."] ACT I. SCENE I.-Sicilia. An Antechamber in Leontes' Palace. Enter CAMILLO and ARCHIDAMUS. ARCH. If you shall chance, Camillo, to visit Bohemia, on the like occasion whereon my services are now on foot, you shall see, as I have said, great difference betwixt our Bohemia and your Sicilia. CAM. I think, this coming summer, the king of Sicilia means to pay Bohemia the visitation which he justly owes him. ARCH. Wherein our entertainment shall shame us we will be justified in our loves: for, indeed,— 432 [ACT I. A WINTER'S TALE. CAM. 'Beseech you,- ARCH. Verily, I speak it in the freedom of my knowledge: we cannot with such magnificence-in so rare-I know not what to say. We will give you sleepy drinks, that your senses, unintelligent of our insufficience, may, though they cannot praise us, as little accuse us. CAM. You pay a great deal too dear for what 's given freely. ARCH. Believe me, I speak as my understanding instructs me, and as mine honesty puts it to utterance. CAM. Sicilia cannot show himself over-kind to Bohemia. They were trained together in their childhoods; and there rooted betwixt them then such an affection which cannot choose but branch now. Since their more mature dignities, and royal necessities, made separation of their society, their encounters, though not personal, have been royally attorneyed, with inter- change of gifts, letters, loving embassies; that they have seemed to be together, though absent; shook hands, as over a vasta; and embraced, as it were, from the ends of opposed winds. The heavens continue their loves! ARCH. I think there is not in the world either malice, or matter, to alter it. You have an unspeakable comfort of your young prince Mamillius; it is a gentleman of the greatest promise that ever came into my note. CAM. I very well agree with you in the hopes of him: It is a gallant child; one that, indeed, physics the subject, makes old hearts fresh; they that went on crutches ere he was born, desire yet their life to see him a man. ARCH. Would they else be content to die? CAM. Yes; if there were no other excuse why they should desire to live. ARCH. If the king had no son they would desire to live on crutches till he had one. [Exeunt. SCENE II.-The same. A Room of State in the Palace. Enter LEONTES, POLIXENES, HERMIONE, MAMILLIUS, CAMILLO, and Attendants. POL. Nine changes of the wat'ry star have been The shepherd's note, since we have left our throne Without a burthen: time as long again Would be fill'd up, my brother, with our thanks ; And yet we should, for perpetuity, Go hence in debt: And therefore, like a cipher Yet standing in rich place, I multiply, With one we-thank-you, many thousands more That go before it. LEON. Stay your thanks awhile; And pay them when you part. a Vast. So the folio of 1623. That of 1632 reads vast sea. In 'Pericles' we have the line, "Thou God of this great vast, rebuke the surges." In the text vast probably has the meaning of great space. SCENE II.] 433 A WINTER'S TALE. POL. Sir, that's to-morrow. I am question'd by my fears, of what may chance, Or breed upon our absence: That may blow No sneaping winds at home, to make us say, "This is put forth too truly! "a Besides, I have stay'd To tire your royalty. LEON. POL. We are tougher, brother, Than you can put us to 't. LEON. One seven-night longer. POL. No longer stay. Very sooth, to-morrow. LEON. We'll part the time between 's then: and in that POL. I'll no gainsaying. Press me not, 'beseech you, so; There is no tongue that moves, none, none i' the world, So soon as yours, could win me: so it should now, Were there necessity in your request, although 'T were needful I denied it. My affairs Do even drag me homeward: which to hinder Were, in your love, a whip to me; my stay, To you a charge and trouble: to save both, Farewell, our brother. You, sir, LEON. Tongue-tied, our queen? speak you. HER. I had thought, sir, to have held my peace, until You had drawn oaths from him, not to stay. Charge him too coldly: Tell him, you are sure All in Bohemia 's well: this satisfaction The by-gone day proclaim'd; say this to him, He's beat from his best ward. LEON. Well said, Hermione. HER. To tell he longs to see his son, were strong: But let him say so then, and let him go; But let him swear so, and he shall not stay, We'll thwack him hence with distaffs.- Yet of your royal presence [to POLIXENES] I'll adventure The borrow of a week. When at Bohemia You take my lord, I 'll give him my commission, To let him there a month, behind the gest a The construction of this passage is somewhat involved; but the meaning is, O that no sneap- ing (ruffling) winds at home may blow, to make us say my presages were too true. b To let is to hinder: and it is probably here used as a reflective verb-to stay himself. • Gest is literally a lodging; and the houses or towns where a prince had assigned to stop in his progress, and of which a list was prepared with dates, were so called. We have the expression in Webster sufficiently clear:- "Like the gesse in the progress; You know where you shall find me." 434 [ACT I. A WINTER'S TALE. POL. b Prefix'd for 's parting: yet, good deeda, Leontes, I love thee not a jar o' the clock behind What lady she her lord.-You'll stay? HER. Nay, but you will? POL. HER. Verily! POL. I may not, verily. No, madam. You put me off with limber vows: But I, Though you would seek to unsphere the stars with oaths, Should yet say, "Sir, no going." Verily, You shall not go; a lady's verily is As potent as a lord's. Will you go yet? Force me to keep you as a prisoner, Not like a guest; so you shall pay your fees, When you depart, and save your thanks. How say you? My prisoner? or my guest? by your dread verily, One of them you shall be. Your guest then, madam : To be your prisoner should import offending; Which is for me less easy to commit, Than you to punish. HER. POL. Not your gaoler then, But your kind hostess. Come, I'll question you lord's tricks, and yours, when you were boys; Of my You were pretty lordings then. We were, fair queen, Two lads, that thought there was no more behind But such a day to-morrow as to-day, And to be boy eternal. HER. Was not my lord the verier wag o' the two? POL. We were as twinn'd lambs, that did frisk i' the sun, And bleat the one at the other: What we chang'd Was innocence for innocence; we knew not The doctrine of ill-doing, nor dream'd That any did: Had we pursued that life, And our weak spirits ne'er been higher rear'd With stronger blood, we should have answer'd heaven Boldly, "Not guilty;" the imposition clear'd, Hereditary ours ª. HER. a Good deed-indeed. · By this we gather, b Jar o' the clock-the ticking of the pendulum. Lady she. For she Mr. Collier prints should, upon the authority of a MS. correction in the first folio. We doubt this. "What lady she" is what lady soever—any lady. d Hereditary ours-being cleared from the taint of original sin. SCENE II.] 435 A WINTER'S TALE. POL. You have tripp'd since. O my most sacred lady, Temptations have since then been born to us: for In those unfledg'd days was my wife a girl; Your precious self had then not cross'd the eyes Of my young playfellow. HER. Grace to boot! Of this make no conclusion; lest you say Your queen and I are devils: Yet, go on; The offences we have made you do we 'll answer; If you first sinn'd with us, and that with us You did continue fault, and that you slipp'd not With any but with us. LEON. HER. He'll stay, my lord. LEON. Is he won yet? At my request, he would not. Hermione, my dearest, thou never spok'st To better purpose. HER. LEON. Never? Never, but once. HER. What? have I twice said well? when was 't before? I prithee, tell me : Cram us with praise, and make us As fat as tame things: One good deed dying tongueless Slaughters a thousand, waiting upon that. Our praises are our wages: You may ride us, With one soft kiss, a thousand furlongs, ere With spur we heat an acre. But to the goal ;- My last good deeda was to entreat his stay; What was my first? it has an elder sister, Or I mistake you: O, would her name were Grace! But once before I spoke to the purpose: When? Nay, let me have 't; I long. LEON. Why, that was when Three crabbed months had sour'd themselves to death, Ere I could make thee open thy white hand, And clap thyself my love; then didst thou utter, "I am yours for ever." HER. It is Grace, indeed.- Why, lo you now, I have spoke to the purpose twice; a Good deed. Some modern editions have contrived to leave out the word deed, without au- thority and without explanation. This was part of the troth-plight. So in 'King John:' "It likes us well; young princes, close your hands." And in 'Henry V.:'- "And so, clap hands, and a bargain." 436 [AOT I. A WINTER'S TALE. The one for ever earn'd a royal husband; The other, for some while a friend. LEON. [Giving her hand to POLIXENES. [Aside. Too hot, too hot: To mingle friendship far, is mingling bloods. I have tremor cordis on me:-my heart dances; But not for joy,-not joy.-This entertainment May a free face put on; derive a liberty From heartiness, from bounty, fertile bosom, And well become the agent: it may, I grant: But to be paddling palms, and pinching fingers, As now they are; and making practis'd smiles, As in a looking-glass;—and then to sigh, as 't were The mort o' the deera; O, that is entertainment My bosom likes not, nor my brows.-Mamillius, Art thou my boy? MAM. LEON. Ay, my good lord. I' fecks? Why, that 's my bawcock. What, hast smutch'd thy nose?— They say it's a copy out of mine. Come, captain, We must be neat; not neat, but cleanly, captain : And yet the steer, the heifer, and the calf, Are all call'd neat.-Still virginalling [Observing POLIXENES and HERMIONE. Upon his palm¹?-How now, you wanton calf? Art thou my calf? MAM. Yes, if you will, my lord. LEON. Thou want'st a rough pash, and the shoots that I have, To be full like me:-yet, they say we are Almost as like as eggs; women say so, That will say anything: But were they false As o'er-dyed blacks ª, as wind, as waters; false As dice are to be wish'd, by one that fixes No bourn 'twixt his and mine; yet were it true To say this boy were like me.-Come, sir page, Look on me with your welkin eye: Sweet villain! Most dear'st! my collop!-Can thy dam?—may't be? Affection! thy intention stabs the centre: a The mort o' the deer-the prolonged note of the hunter's horn at the death of the deer. b Pash. Jamieson explains the word as used in Scotland to be head; as a bare pash, a bare head. But in the midland counties the tuft of hair between the horns of a bull is called the pash. The correct application of the local word is evident when we observe that Leontes has just said, "Art thou my calf ?” • Full like me-quite like me. a O'er-dyed blacks-cloths dyed black a second time, or cloths originally of another colour dyed black; and so, false, because impaired in quality. e • Welkin eye-blue eye. f Affection is imagination; intention, eagerness of attention. SCENE II.] 437 A WINTER'S TALE. Thou dost make possible things not so held, Communicat'st with dreams;-(How can this be?)— With what's unreal thou coactive art, And fellow'st nothing: Then, 't is very credenta, Thou mayst co-join with something; and thou dost; (And that beyond commission; and I find it,) And that to the infection of my brains, POL. And hardening of my brows. HER. He something seems unsettled. POL. What means Sicilia? How! my lord! You look LEON. What cheer? how is 't with you, best brother? HER. As if you held a brow of much distraction : Are you mov'd, my lord? LEON. No, in good earnest.- How sometimes nature will betray its folly, Its tenderness, and make itself a pastime To harder bosoms! Looking on the lines Of my boy's face, my thoughts I did recoil© Twenty-three years; and saw myself unbreech'd, In my green velvet coat; my dagger muzzled, Lest it should bite its master, and so prove, As ornaments oft do, too dangerous. How like, methought, I then was to this kernel, This quash, this gentleman :-Mine honest friend, Will you take eggs for money?? MAM. No, my lord, I'll fight. LEON. You will? why, happy man be his doled!-My brother, POL. Are you so fond of your young prince, as we Do seem to be of ours? a Credent-credible. If at home, sir, b We restore this line to Leontes, according to the original. On the authority of Hanmer and Steevens, the passage is printed as follows:- " POL. How, my lord? What cheer? how is 't with you, best brother?” Leontes, even in his moody reverie, has his eye fixed upon his queen and Polixenes; and when he is addressed by the latter with "How, my lord?" he replies, with a forced gaiety, "What cheer? how is 't with you?" The addition of "best brother" is, we apprehend, meant to be uttered in a tone of bitter irony. All this is destroyed by making the line merely a prolongation of the inquiry of Polixenes. C This is usually printed " methoughts, I did recoil." The original has "me thoughts" as two words, without a comma following. Five lines lower we have "me thought," as a parenthesis. We have no doubt that me is a misprint for my, and that recoil is used as an active verb-" I did put back my thoughts." a A proverbial expression; meaning, may his lot (dole) be happy. 438 [AOT I. A WINTER'S TALE. He's all my exercise, my mirth, my matter: Now my sworn friend, and then mine enemy; My parasite, my soldier, statesman, all: He makes a July's day short as December; And, with his varying childness, cures in me Thoughts that would thick my blood. LEON. So stands this squire Offic'd with me: We two will walk, my lord, And leave you to your graver steps.-Hermione, How thou lov'st us, show in our brother's welcome; Let what is dear in Sicily be cheap: Next to thyself, and my young rover, he 's Apparent to my heart a. HER. If you would seek us, We are yours i' the garden: Shall 's attend you there? LEON. To your own bents dispose you: you 'll be found, Be you beneath the sky:-I am angling now, Though you perceive me not how I give line. Go to, go to! [Aside. Observing POLIXENES and HERMIONE. How she holds up the neb, the bill to him! And arms her with the boldness of a wife To her allowing husband! Gone already; Inch-thick, knee-deep, o'er head and ears a fork'd one. [Exeunt POLIXENES, HERMIONE, and Attendants. Go, play, boy, play;-thy mother plays, and I Play too; but so disgrac'd a part, whose issue Will hiss me to my grave; contempt and clamour Will be my knell.-Go, play, boy, play ;-There have been, Or I am much deceiv'd, cuckolds ere now; And many a man there is, even at this present, Now, while I speak this, holds his wife by the arm, That little thinks she has been sluic'd in his absence, And his pond fish'd by his next neighbour, by a We have been favoured with the following note by Mr. Richardson, the author of 'A New Dictionary of the English Language:'-" Johnson thinks'apparent to my heart' means 'heir apparent.' But why is he 'whose right of inheritance is indefeasible provided he outlives his ancestor' (Blackstone) called heir apparent? Surely because he is something more than appa- rently heir. The heir presumptive is that. The heir apparent is evidently so near the ancestor that no one can at any time intervene or become nearer. And in Cotgrave we find not only apparent (appearing), but 'apparenté, m., ée f., of kin, or near kinsman unto.' In Richardson's Dictionary the old word paravaunt, used several times by Spenser, and adopted from the Fr. paravant, is explained by—' Advance, in the van or front, before; before in succession, next in succession, as heir paraunt, i. e., apparent.' And this latter interpretation is supported by a quotation from Fabian: 'By auctoryte of the same Parliament, Syr Roger Mortymer, Erle of, &c., was proclaymed heyer paraunt vnto the crowne of Englonde:' anno 1386. In Lacomte and Roquefort paravant is explained—' Devant, auparavant.' The contraction of auparavant into auparant, apparant, and thence, by ignorance, into apparenté, is intelligible enough. 'Apparent to my heart,' then, is 'Next to my heart.' SCENE II.] 439 A WINTER'S TALE. Sir Smile, his neighbour: nay, there 's comfort in 't Whiles other men have gates, and those gates open'd, As mine, against their will: Should all despair That have revolted wives, the tenth of mankind Would hang themselves. Physic for 't there's none; It is a bawdy planet, that will strike Where 't is predominant; and 't is powerful, think it, From east, west, north, and south: Be it concluded, No barricado for a belly; know it; It will let in and out the enemy, With bag and baggage: many a thousand of us Have the disease, and feel 't not.-How now, boy? MAM. I am like you, they say. LEON. What! Camillo there? CAM. Ay, my good lord. Why, that's some comfort. LEON. Go play, Mamillius; thou 'rt an honest man.— Camillo, this great sir will yet stay longer. Didst note it? CAM. You had much ado to make his anchor hold: When you cast out, it still came home. LEON. CAM. He would not stay at your petitions; made His business more material. LEON. Didst perceive it ?— They're here with me already; whispering, rounding ª, "Sicilia is a-so-forth :" "T is far gone, When I shall gust it last.-How came 't, Camillo, That he did stay? CAM. At the good queen's entreaty. LEON. At the queen's, be 't: good, should be pertinent: But so it is, it is not. Was this taken By any understanding pate but thine? For thy conceit is soaking, will draw in More than the common blocks :—Not noted, is 't, But of the finer natures? by some severals Of head-piece extraordinary? lower messes3 Perchance are to this business purblind? say. CAM. Business, my lord? I think, most understand Bohemia stays here longer. LEON. CAM. LEON. Ay, but why? Ha! Stays here longer. CAM. To satisfy your highness, and the entreaties a Rounding-telling secretly. [Exit MAMILLIUS. 440 [ACT I. A WINTER'S TALE. Of our most gracious mistress. LEON. Satisfy The entreaties of your mistress? -satisfy ?- Let that suffice. I have trusted thee, Camillo, With all the nearest things to my heart, as well My chamber-councils: wherein, priest-like, thou Hast cleans'd my bosom; I from thee departed Thy penitent reform'd: but we have been Deceiv'd in thy integrity, deceiv'd In that which seems so. САМ. Be it forbid, my lord! LEON. To bide upon 't;-Thou art not honest: or, If thou inclin'st that way, thou art a coward; Which hoxes a honesty behind, restraining From course requir'd: Or else thou must be counted A servant grafted in my serious trust, And therein negligent: or else a fool, That seest a game play'd home, the rich stake drawn, And takʼst it all for jest. CAM. My gracious lord, I may be negligent, foolish, and fearful; In every one of these no man is free, But that his negligence, his folly, fear, Among the infinite doings of the world, Sometimes puts forth: In your affairs, my lord, If ever I were wilful-negligent, It was my folly; if industriously I play'd the fool, it was my negligence, Not weighing well the end; if ever fearful To do a thing, where I the issue doubted, Whereof the execution did cry out Against the non-performance, 't was a fear Which oft infects the wisest: these, my lord, Are such allow'd infirmities, that honesty Is never free of. But, 'beseech your grace, Be plainer with me: let me know my trespass By its own visage: if I then deny it, "T is none of mine. LEON. Have not you seen, Camillo, (But that's past doubt-you have; or your eye-glass Is thicker than a cuckold's horn,) or heard, (For, to a vision so apparent, rumour Cannot be mute,) or thought, (for cogitation a Hoxes. To hox is to hamstring-to hough. SCENE II.] 441 A WINTER'S TALE. Resides not in that man that does not think a My wife is slippery? If thou wilt confess, (Or else be impudently negative, To have nor eyes, nor ears, nor thought,) then say, My wife's a hobbyhorse; deserves a name As rank as any flax-wench, that puts to Before her troth-plight: say it, and justify it. CAM. I would not be a stander-by, to hear My sovereign mistress clouded so, without My present vengeance taken: 'Shrew my heart, You never spoke what did become you less Than this; which to reiterate, were sin As deep as that, though true. LEON. Is whispering nothing? Is leaning cheek to cheek? is meeting noses? Kissing with inside lip? stopping the career Of laughter with a sigh? (a note infallible Of breaking honesty :) horsing foot on foot? Skulking in corners? wishing clocks more swift? Hours, minutes? noon, midnight? and all eyes Blind with the pin and webb, but theirs, theirs only, That would unseen be wicked? is this nothing? Why, then the world, and all that 's in 't, is nothing; The covering sky is nothing; Bohemia nothing; My wife is nothing; nor nothing have these nothings, If this be nothing. CAM. Good my lord, be cur'd Of this diseas'd opinion, and betimes; For 't is most dangerous. LEON. CAM. No, no, my lord. LEON. Say, it be; 't is true. It is; you lie, you lie : I say, thou liest, Camillo, and I hate thee; Pronounce thee a gross lout, a mindless slave; Or else a hovering temporizer, that Canst with thine eyes at once see good and evil, a We print this as in the original. Theobald defends his well-known line of "None but himself can be his parallel" by this example; and Pope-perhaps to rob Theobald of his authority-reads, "for cogitation Resides not in that man that does not think it.” Malone justly shows that the addition of it is unnecessary; that this is not an abstract proposi- tion; and that the words "my wife is slippery," though disjoined from "think" by the parenthesis, are evidently to be received in construction with that verb. See 'King Lear,' Act III., Scene 4. 442 [ACT I. A WINTER'S TALE. Inclining to them both: Were my wife's liver Infected as her life, she would not live CAM. The running of one glass. Who does infect her? LEON. Why, he that wears her like her medal, hanging About his neck, Bohemia: Who-if I Had servants true about me, that bare eyes To see alike mine honour as their profits, Their own particular thrifts,—they would do that Which should undo more doing: Ay, and thou, His cupbearer,-whom I from meaner form Have bench'd and rear'd to worship; who mayst see Plainly, as heaven sees earth, and earth sees heaven, How I am galled,-mightst bespice a cup, To give mine enemy a lasting wink; Which draught to me were cordial. САМ. Sir, my lord, I could do this; and that with no rash potion, But with a ling'ring dram, that should not work Maliciously like poison: But I cannot Believe this crack to be in my dread mistress, So sovereignly being honourable. I have lov'd thee,- LEON. Make that thy question, and go rota! Dost think, I am so muddy, so unsettled, To appoint myself in this vexation? sully The purity and whiteness of my sheets, Which to preserve is sleep; which being spotted, Is goads, thorns, nettles, tails of wasps? Give scandal to the blood o' the prince my son, Who I do think is mine, and love as mine; Without ripe moving to 't?-Would I do this? Could man so blench? CAM. I must believe you, sir; I do; and will fetch off Bohemia for 't: Provided, that when he 's removed, your highness Will take again your queen, as yours at first; Even for your son's sake; and, thereby, for sealing The injury of tongues, in courts and kingdoms Known and allied to yours. LEON. Thou dost advise me, Even so as I mine own course have set down: I'll give no blemish to her honour, none. a Disregarding Camillo's "I have lov'd thee," Leontes is enraged at his making a question of the alleged dishonour of his "dread mistress." SCENE II.] 443 A WINTER'S TALE. CAM. My lord, Go then; and with a countenance as clear As friendship wears at feasts, keep with Bohemia, And with your queen: I am his cupbearer; If from me he have wholesome beverage, Account me not your servant. LEON. This is all: Do 't, and thou hast the one half of my heart; Do't not, thou splitt'st thine own. CAM. I'll do 't, my lord. LEON. I will seem friendly, as thou hast advis'd me. CAM. O miserable lady!-But, for me, What case stand I in? I must be the poisoner Of good Polixenes: and my ground to do 't Is the obedience to a master; one, Who, in rebellion with himself, will have All that are his so too.-To do this deed, Promotion follows: If I could find example Of thousands that had struck anointed kings And flourish'd after, I'd not do 't: but since Nor brass, nor stone, nor parchment, bears not one, Let villainy itself forswear 't. I must Forsake the court: to do 't, or no, is certain To me a break-neck. Happy star, reign now! Here comes Bohemia. [Exit. Enter POLIXENES. POL. This is strange! methinks, My favour here begins to warp. Not speak?--- CAM. Good day, Camillo. Hail, most royal sir! POL. What is the news i' the court? None rare, my lord. CAM. POL. The king hath on him such a countenance As he had lost some province, and a region Lov'd as he loves himself: even now I met him With customary compliment; when he, Wafting his eyes to the contrary, and falling A lip of much contempt, speeds from me; and So leaves me, to consider what is breeding That changes thus his manners. CAM. I dare not know, my lord. POL. How! dare not? do not? Do you know, and dare not Be intelligent to me? T is thereabouts; For, to yourself, what you do know you must; COMEDIES.-VOL. II. H H 444 [ACT I. A WINTER'S TALE. } And cannot say, you dare not. Good Camillo, Your chang'd complexions are to me a mirror, Which shows me mine chang'd too: for I must be A party in this alteration, finding Myself thus alter'd with it. CAM. POL. There is a sickness Which puts some of us in distemper; but I cannot name the disease; and it is caught Of you that yet are well. How caught of me? Make me not sighted like the basilisk: I have look'd on thousands who have sped the better By my regard, but kill'd none so. Camillo- As you are certainly a gentleman; thereto Clerk-like, experienc'd, which no less adorns Our gentry, than our parents' noble names, In whose success a we are gentle,-I beseech you, If you know aught which does behove my knowledge Thereof to be inform'd, imprison it not In ignorant concealment. CAM. I may not answer. POL. A sickness caught of me, and yet I well! I must be answer'd.-Dost thou hear, Camillo ? I conjure thee, by all the parts of man Which honour does acknowledge,—whereof the least Is not this suit of mine,—that thou declare What incidency thou dost guess of harm Is creeping toward me; how far off, how near; Which way to be prevented, if to be; If not, how best to bear it. CAM. Sir, I will tell you; Since I am charg'd in honour, and by him That I think honourable: Therefore, mark my counsel; Which must be even as swiftly follow'd as POL. I mean to utter it; or both yourself and me Cry "lost," and so good night. On, good Camillo. CAM. I am appointed him to murther you. POL. By whom, Camillo? CAM. POL. By the king. For what? CAM. He thinks, nay, with all confidence, he swears, As he had seen 't or been an instrument To vice you to 't,—that you have touch'd his queen a Success-succession. SCENE II.] 415 A WINTER'S TALE. POL. Forbiddenly. O, then my best blood turn To an infected jelly; and my name Be yok'd with his that did betray the Besta! Turn then my freshest reputation to A savour that may strike the dullest nostril Where I arrive; and my approach be shunn'd, Nay, hated too, worse than the great'st infection That e'er was heard, or read! CAM. Swear his thought over By each particular star in heaven, and By all their influences, you may as well Forbid the sea for to obey the moon, As, or by oath, remove, or counsel, shake The fabric of his folly; whose foundation Is pil'd upon his faith, and will continue The standing of his body. POL. How should this grow? CAM. I know not: but, I am sure, 't is safer to POL. Avoid what's grown than question how 't is born. If therefore you dare trust my honesty,- That lies enclosed in this trunk, which you Shall bear along impawn'd,-away to-night. Your followers I will whisper to the business: And will, by twos, and threes, at several posterns, Clear them o' the city: For myself, I'll put My fortunes to your service, which are here By this discovery lost. Be not uncertain; For, by the honour of my parents, I Have utter'd truth: which, if you seek to prove, I dare not stand by; nor shall you be safer b Than one condemn'd by the king's own mouth, thereon His execution sworn. I do believe thee; I saw his heart in his face. Give me thy hand; с Be pilot to me, and thy places shall Still neighbour mine: My ships are ready, and My people did expect my hence departure Two days ago. This jealousy Is for a precious creature as she's rare, Must it be great; and, as his person's mighty, a We print Best with a capital as in the folio. The allusion is to Judas. The sentence against excommunicated persons contains a clause that they should have part with that betrayer. b Over-swear his thought. e Places-honours. } HH 2 446 ACT 1. A WINTER'S TALE. Must it be violent: and as he does conceive He is dishonour'd by a man which ever Profess'd to him, why, his revenges must In that be made more bitter. Fear o'ershades me : Good expedition be my friend, and comfort The gracious queen, part of his theme, but nothing Of his ill-ta'en suspicion! Come, Camillo ; I will respect thee as a father, if Thou bear'st my life off hence: Let us avoid. CAM. It is in mine authority to command The keys of all the posterns: Please your highness To take the urgent hour: come, sir, away. MAVILLAMAR [Exeunt. W.T GREEN Su ["Behind the tuft of pines I met them."] ACT II. SCENE I.-Sicilia.—The Palace. Enter HERMIONE, MAMILLIUS, and Ladies. HER. Take the boy to you: he so troubles me "T is past enduring. 1 LADY. Come, my gracious lord, Shall I be your playfellow? MAM. 1 LADY. Why, my sweet lord? No, I'll none of you. MAM. You'll kiss me hard; and speak to me as if I were a baby still.—I love you better. 448 [ACT II. A WINTER'S TALE. 2 LADY. And why so, my lord? MAM. Not for because Your brows are blacker; yet black brows, they say, Become some women best; so that there be not Too much hair there, but in a semicircle, Or a half-moon made with a pen. 2 LADY. Who taught this? MAM. I learn'd it out of women's faces: pray now What colour are your eyebrows? 1 LADY. Blue, my lord. MAM. Nay, that's a mock: I have seen a lady's nose That has been blue, but not her eyebrows. 2 LADY. Hark ye: The queen, your mother, rounds apace: we shall Present our services to a fine new prince, One of these days; and then you'd wanton with us, If we would have you. 1 LADY. She is spread of late Into a goodly bulk: Good time encounter her! HER. What wisdom stirs amongst you? Come, sir, now I am for you again: Pray you, sit by us, And tell's a tale. MAM. Merry, or sad, shall 't be? A sad tale 's best for winter : HER. As merry as you will. MAM. I have one of sprites and goblins. HER. Let's have that, good sir. Come on, sit down:-Come on, and do your best To fright me with your sprites: you 're powerful at it. MAM. There was a man,- HER. Nay, come, sit down; then on. MAM. Dwelt by a churchyard; -I will tell it softly; Yon crickets shall not hear it. HER. And give 't me in mine ear. Come on then, Enter LEONTES, ANTIGONUS, Lords, and others. LEON. Was he met there? his train? Camillo with him? 1 LORD. Behind the tuft of pines I met them; never Saw I men scour so on their way: I ey'd them Even to their ships. LEON. How bless'd am I In my just censure!—in my true opinion! Alack, for lesser knowledge!-How accurs'd In being so bless'd!—There may be in the cup SCENE I.] 449 A WINTER'S TALE. A spider steep'd³, and one may drink; depart, And yet partake no venom; for his knowledge Is not infected: but if one present The abhorr'd ingredient to his eye, make known How he hath drunk, he cracks his gorge, his sides, With violent hefts :—I have drunk, and seen the spider. Camillo was his help in this, his pander :- There is a plot against my life, my crown; All's true that is mistrusted :-that false villain, Whom I employ'd, was pre-employ'd by him: He has discover'd my design, and I Remain a pinch'd thing; yea, a very trick For them to play at will:-How came the posterns So easily open? 1 LORD. By his great authority; Which often hath no less prevail'd than so, On your command. LEON. I know 't too well.- Give me the boy; I am glad you did not nurse him: Though he does bear some signs of me, yet you Have too much blood in him. HER. What is this? sport? LEON. Bear the boy hence, he shall not come about her; Away with him:-and let her sport herself With that she's big with; for 't is Polixenes Has made thee swell thus. HER. But I'd say, he had not, And, I'll be sworn, you would believe my saying, Howe'er you lean to the nayward. LEON. You, my lords, Look on her, mark her well; be but about To say, "she is a goodly lady," and The justice of your hearts will thereto add, "'T is pity she's not honest, honourable: Praise her but for this her without-door form, (Which, on my faith, deserves high speech,) and straight The shrug, the hum, or ha; these petty brands That calumny doth use:-0, I am out, a There was a popular notion that spiders were poisonous. One of the witnesses against the Countess of Somerset, in the affair of Sir Thomas Overbury, says,-" The Countess wished me to get the strongest poison I could, &c. Accordingly I bought seven great spiders and can- tharides." b Hefts-heavings. • A pinch'd thing. Heath explains this as "A mere child's baby, a thing pinched out of clouts.” This is surely a forced interpretation; although pinch'd may convey the meaning of one made petty and contemptible, shrunk up, pinched, as we say, by poverty or hunger. 450 [ACT II. A WINTER'S TALE. That mercy does; for calumny will sear Virtue itself: these shrugs, these hums, and ha's, When you have said she's goodly, come between, Ere you can say she's honest: But be 't known, From him that has most cause to grieve it should be, She's an adultress. HER. Should a villain say so, The most replenish'd villain in the world, He were as much more villain: you, my lord, Do but mistake. LEON. You have mistook, my lady, Polixenes for Leontes: O thou thing, Which I'll not call a creature of thy place, Lest barbarism, making me the precedent, Should a like language use to all degrees, And mannerly distinguishment leave out Betwixt the prince and beggar!—I have said, She's an adultress; I have said, with whom : More, she's a traitor; and Camillo is a A federary with her; and one that knows What she should shame to know herself, But with her most vile principal, that she's A bed-swerver, even as bad as those b That vulgars give bold'st titles; ay, and privy To this their late escape. HER. No, by my life, Privy to none of this: How will this grieve you When you shall come to clearer knowledge, that You thus have publish'd me! Gentle my lord, You scarce can right me throughly then, to say You did mistake. LEON. No; if I mistake In those foundations which I build upon, The centre is not big enough to bear A schoolboy's top.-Away with her to prison: He who shall speak for her is afar off d guilty, But that he speaks. HER. There's some ill planet reigns: I must be patient, till the heavens look With an aspect more favourable.-Good my lords, a Federary-confederate; the same as feodary. Bold'st. Steevens has minced this into bold. • No. The emphatic no, with a pause such as a judicious actor would supply, is turned in all modern editions into no, no. a Afar off-in a remote degree. SCENE I.] 451 A WINTER'S TALE. I am not prone to weeping, as our sex Commonly are; the want of which vain dew, Perchance, shall dry your pities: but I have That honourable grief lodg'd here, which burns Worse than tears drown: 'Beseech you all, my lords, With thoughts so qualified as your charities Shall best instruct you, measure me;—and so The king's will be perform'd! LEON. Shall I be heard? HER. Who is 't that goes with me?-'Beseech your highness, My women may be with me; for, you see, My plight requires it. Do not weep, good fools ; There is no cause: when you shall know your mistress Has deserv'd prison, then abound in tears, As I come out; this action I now go on Is for my better grace.-Adieu, my lord; I never wish'd to see you sorry; now, I trust, I shall.-My women, come; you have leave. LEON. Go, do our bidding; hence. [To the Guards. [Exeunt QUEEN and Ladies. 1 LORD. 'Beseech your highness, call the queen again. ANT. Be certain what you do, sir; lest your justice Prove violence: in the which three great ones suffer, Yourself, your queen, your son. 1 LORD. ANT. For her, my lord, I dare my life lay down, and will do 't, sir, Please you t' accept it, that the queen is spotless I' the eyes of heaven, and to you; I mean, In this which you accuse her. If it prove She's otherwise, I'll keep my stables where I lodge my wife; I'll go in couples with her; Than when I feel and see her, no further trust her; For every inch of woman in the world, Ay, every dram of woman's flesh, is false, If she be. LEON. Hold your peaces. I LORD. Good my lord,- ANT. It is for you we speak, not for ourselves: You are abus'd, and by some putter-on, That will be damn'd for 't; 'would I knew the villain, I would land-damnb him: Be she honour-flaw'd- a Than was formerly spelt then; and we have to choose in this passage between than and then. Malone prefers then; but we think the sentence is comparative: I will trust her no farther than I see her. b Land-damn. We are unable to explain this; and it is scarcely necessary to trouble our 452 [ACT II. A WINTER'S TALE. I have three daughters; the eldest is eleven; The second, and the third, nine, and some five a; If this prove true, they 'll pay for 't: by mine honour, I'll geld them all: fourteen they shall not see, To bring false generations: they are co-heirs; And I had rather glib myself than they Should not produce fair issue. LEON. ANT. Cease; no more. You smell this business with a sense as cold As is a dead man's nose: but I do see 't, and feel 't, As you feel doing thus; and see withal The instruments that feel b. If it be so, We need no grave to bury honesty; There's not a grain of it, the face to sweeten Of the whole dungy earth. LEON. What! lack I credit? 1 LORD. I had rather you did lack than I, my lord, Upon this ground: and more it would content me To have her honour true, than your suspicion; Be blam'd for 't how you might. LEON. ANT. Why, what need we Commune with you of this? but rather follow Our forceful instigation? Our prerogative Calls not your counsels; but our natural goodness Imparts this which—if you (or stupified, с Or seeming so in skill) cannot, or will not, Relish a truth like us; inform yourselves, We need no more of your advice: the matter, The loss, the gain, the ordering on 't, is all Properly ours. And I wish, my liege, You had only in your silent judgment tried it, Without more overture. LEON. Either thou art most ignorant by age, Or thou wert born a fool. How could that be? Camillo's flight, Added to their familiarity (Which was as gross as ever touch'd conjecture, readers with the notes of the commentators, some of which are not of the most delicate nature. Farmer's conjecture, that it meant laudanum him-poison him with laudanum-is, we suppose, intended for a joke. a The word nine refers to the second, and some five to the third. ь Some action must accompany this passage, as that of Leontes seizing hold of the arm of Antigonus. • A truth. So the original. Rowe changed it to as truth. SCENE II.] 453 A WINTER'S TALE. That lack'd sight only, nought for approbation", But only seeing, all other circumstances Made up to the deed), doth push on this proceeding. Yet, for a greater confirmation (For, in an act of this importance, 't were Most piteous to be wild), I have despatch'd in post, To sacred Delphos, to Apollo's temple, Cleomenes and Dion, whom you know Of stuff'd sufficiency: Now, from the oracle They will bring all; whose spiritual counsel had Shall stop, or spur me. 1 LORD. Well done, my lord. Have I done well? LEON. Though I am satisfied, and need no more Than what I know, yet shall the oracle Give rest to the minds of others; such as he Whose ignorant credulity will not Come up to the truth: So have we thought it good, From our free person she should be confin'd; Lest that the treachery of the two, fled hence, Be left her to perform. Come, follow us; We are to speak in public; for this business Will raise us all. ANT. [Aside.] To laughter, as I take it, If the good truth were known. SCENE II.-The same. The outer Room of a Prison. Enter PAULINA and Attendants. [Exeunt. PAUL. The keeper of the prison,-call to him; Let him have knowledge who I am.-Good lady! No court in Europe is too good for thee, What dost thou then in prison ?—Now, good sir, [Exit an Attendant. Re-enter Attendant, with the Keeper. You know me, do you not? KEEP. For a worthy lady, Pray you, then, And one whom much I honour. PAUL. Conduct me to the queen. KEEP. I may not, madam; to the contrary I have express commandment. PAUL. a Approbation-proof. Here's ado, b Seeing-used as a noun. 454 [ACT 11. A WINTER'S TALE. To lock up honesty and honour from The access of gentle visitors!-Is 't lawful, pray you, To see her women? any of them? Emilia? KEEP. So please you, madam, To put apart these your attendants, I Shall bring Emilia forth. PAUL. Withdraw yourselves a. KEEP. I pray now, call her [Exeunt Attendants. And, madam, [Exit Keeper. I must be present at your conference. PAUL. Well, be it so, prithee. Here 's such ado to make no stain a stain, As passes colouring. Re-enter Keeper, with EMILIA. Dear gentlewoman, How fares our gracious lady? EMIL. As well as one so great, and so forlorn, May hold together: on her frights, and griefs, (Which never tender lady hath borne greater,) She is, something before her time, deliver'd. PAUL. A boy? EMIL. A daughter; and a goodly babe, Lusty, and like to live: the queen receives Much comfort in 't: says, "My poor prisoner, I am innocent as you." PAUL. I dare be sworn :- These dangerous unsafe lunes i' the king! beshrew them! He must be told on 't, and he shall: the office Becomes a woman best; I'll take 't upon me : If I prove honey-mouth'd, let my tongue blister; And never to my red-look'd anger be The trumpet any more:-Pray you, Emilia, Commend my best obedience to the queen; If she dares trust me with her little babe, I'll show 't the king, and undertake to be Her advocate to th' loudest: We do not know How he may soften at the sight o' the child; The silence often of pure innocence Persuades, when speaking fails. EMIL. Most worthy madam, Your honour, and your goodness, is so evident, That your free undertaking cannot miss a In these speeches we follow the metrical arrangement of the original, which is certainly not improved by the botching which we find in modern editions. SCENE III.] 455 A WINTER'S TALE. A thriving issue; there is no lady living So meet for this great errand: Please your ladyship To visit the next room, I'll presently Acquaint the queen of your most noble offer; Who, but to-day, hammer'd of this design; But durst not tempt a minister of honour, Lest she should be denied. PAUL. Tell her, Emilia, I'll use that tongue I have: if wit flow from it, As boldness from my bosom, let it not be doubted I shall do good. EMIL. Now be you bless'd for it! I'll to the queen: Please you, come something nearer. KEEP. Madam, if 't please the queen to send the babe, I know not what I shall incur, to pass it, Having no warrant. PAUL. You need not fear it, sir: This child was prisoner to the womb; and is, By law and process of great nature, thence Freed and enfranchis'd: not a party to The anger of the king; nor guilty of, If any be, the trespass of the queen. KEEP. I do believe it. PAUL. Do not you fear; upon mine honour, I Will stand betwixt you and danger. [Exeunt. SCENE III.-The same. A Room in the Palace. Enter LEONTES, ANTIGONUS, Lords, and other Attendants. LEON. Nor night nor day, no rest: It is but weakness To bear the matter thus; mere weakness, if The cause were not in being;-part o' the cause, She, the adultress; for the harlot king Is quite beyond mine arm, out of the blank And level of my brain, plot-proof: but she I can hook to me: Say, that she were gone, Given to the fire, a moiety of my rest Might come to me again.-Who's there? 1 ATTEND. LEON. How does the boy? 1 ATTEND. My lord! [Advancing. He took good rest to-night; "T is hop'd his sickness is discharg'd. LEON. To see his nobleness! 456 [ACT II. A WINTER'S TALE. 14 Conceiving the dishonour of his mother, He straight declin'd, droop'd, took it deeply; Fasten'd and fix'd the shame on 't in himself; Threw off his spirit, his appetite, his sleep, And downright languish'd.-Leave me solely :-go, See how he fares. [Exit Attend.]-Fie, fie! no thought of him; The very thought of my revenges that way Recoil upon me: in himself too mighty: And in his parties, his alliance.-Let him be, Until a time may serve: for present vengeance, Take it on her. Camillo and Polixenes Laugh at me; make their pastime at my sorrow : They should not laugh if I could reach them; nor Shall she, within my power. 1 LORD. Enter PAULINA, with a Child. You must not enter. PAUL. Nay, rather, good my lords, be second to me: Fear you his tyrannous passion more, alas, Than the queen's life? a gracious innocent soul; More free than he is jealous. ANT. That's enough. 1 ATTEND. Madam, he hath not slept to-night; commanded None should come at him. PAUL. Not so hot, good sir; I come to bring him sleep. T is such as you,- That creep like shadows by him, and do sigh At each his needless heavings, such as you Nourish the cause of his awaking: I Do come with words as medicinal as true; Honest as either; to purge him of that humour That presses him from sleep. LEON. What a noise there, ho? PAUL. No noise, my lord; but needful conference, About some gossips for your highness. LEON. ANT. How?- Away with that audacious lady: Antigonus, I charg'd thee that she should not come about me; I knew she would. I told her so, my lord, On your displeasure's peril, and on mine, She should not visit you. LEON. What, canst not rule her? a What. The original reads who, evidently a misprint. SCENE III.] 457 A WINTER'S TALE. PAUL. From all dishonesty he can: in this, ANT. (Unless he take the course that you have done, Commit me, for committing honour,) trust it, He shall not rule me. Laa you now; you hear! When she will take the rein, I let her run; But she 'll not stumble. PAUL. Good my liege, I come, And, I beseech you, hear me, who professes Myself your loyal servant, your physician, Your most obedient counsellor; yet that dares Less appear so, in comforting your evils, Than such as most seem yours,—I say, I come From your good queen. LEON. b Good queen! PAUL. Good queen, my lord, good queen: I say, good queen ; And would by combat make her good, so were I A man, the worst about you. LEON. Force her hence. PAUL. Let him that makes but trifles of his eyes First hand me: on mine own accord, I 'll off; But, first, I'll do my errand.-The good queen, For she is good, hath brought you forth a daughter; Here 't is; commends it to your blessing. LEON. Out! A mankind witch! Hence with her, out o' door: A most intelligencing bawd! PAUL. Not so: I am as ignorant in that, as you In so entitling me: and no less honest Than you are mad; which is enough, I 'll warrant, As this world goes, to pass for honest. LEON. Traitors! Will you not push her out? Give her the bastard- [Laying down the Child. Thou dotard [to ANTIGONUS], thou art woman-tired ª, unroosted By thy dame Partlet here,―take up the bastard; a La. This is commonly printed lo. The words each mean look you; but la is used affectedly, or ironically, as in this case. b Comforting-encouraging. We have still "comforting and abetting," in legal language. Mankind-masculine. Jonson has an example of this use of the word:- "Pallas, now thee I call on, mankind maid." d Woman-tired. This is equivalent to our hen pecked. To tire is to tear, as a bird of prey does his meat: “And like an empty eagle, Tire on the flesh of me and of my son."-('Henry VI., Part III.') 458 [ACT 11. A WINTER'S TALE. Take 't up, I say; giv't to thy crone. PAUL. Unvenerable be thy hands, if thou For ever Tak'st up the princess, by that forced baseness Which he has put upon 't! LEON. He dreads his wife. PAUL. So I would you did; then 't were past all doubt You'd call your children yours. LEON. ANT. I am none, by this good light. PAUL. A nest of traitors! Nor I; nor any, But one, that's here; and that 's himself: for he The sacred honour of himself, his queen's, His hopeful son's, his babe's, betrays to slander, Whose sting is sharper than the sword's; and will not (For, as the case now stands, it is a curse He cannot be compell'd to 't) once remove The root of his opinion, which is rotten, As ever oak, or stone, was sound. LEON. A callat, Of boundless tongue; who late hath beat her husband, And now baits me !-This brat is none of mine; It is the issue of Polixenes : Hence with it; and, together with the dam, Commit them to the fire. PAUL. It is yours; And, might we lay the old proverb to your charge, So like you, 't is the worse.-Behold, my lords, Although the print be little, the whole matter And copy of the father: eye, nose, lip, The trick of his frown, his forehead; nay, the valley, The pretty dimples of his chin and cheek; his smiles; The very mould and frame of hand, nail, finger: And thou, good goddess Nature, which hast made it So like to him that got it, if thou hast The ordering of the mind too, 'mongst all colours No yellow in 't; lest she suspect, as he does, Her children not her husband's ! LEON. ANT. And, lozel ª, thou art worthy to be hang'd, That wilt not stay her tongue. A gross hag!- Hang all the husbands That cannot do that feat, you'll leave yourself a Lozel. Verstegan explains this as one that hath lost, neglected, or cast off, his own good and welfare, and so is become lewd and careless of credit and honesty." SCENE III.] 459 A WINTER'S TALE. Hardly one subject. LEON. Once more, take her hence. PAUL. A most unworthy and unnatural lord Can do no more. LEON. I'll have thee burn'd. PAUL. I care not: It is an heretic that makes the fire, Not she which burns in 't. I'll not call you tyrant; But this most cruel usage of your queen (Not able to produce more accusation Than your own weak-hing'd fancy) something savours Of tyranny, and will ignoble make you, Yea, scandalous to the world. LEON. On your allegiance, Out of the chamber with her. Were I a tyrant, Where were her life? she durst not call me so, If she did know me one. Away with her. PAUL. I pray you, do not push me; I'll be gone. Look to your babe, my lord; 't is yours: Jove send her A better guiding spirit !—What need these hands ?— You, that are thus so tender o'er his follies, Will never do him good, not one of you. So, so:—Farewell; we are gone. LEON. Thou, traitor, hast set on thy wife to this,- My child! away with 't!-even thou, that hast A heart so tender o'er it, take it hence, ANT. And see it instantly consum'd with fire: Even thou, and none but thou. Take it up straight: Within this hour bring me word 't is done, (And by good testimony,) or I'll seize thy life, With what thou else call'st thine: If thou refuse, And wilt encounter with my wrath, say so; The bastard brains with these my proper hands Shall I dash out. Go, take it to the fire; For thou sett'st on thy wife. I did not, sir: These lords, my noble fellows, if they please, Can clear me in 't. 1 LORD. We can, my royal liege, He is not guilty of her coming hither. LEON. You are liars all. 1 LORD. 'Beseech your highness, give us better credit; We have always truly serv'd you; and beseech So to esteem of us: And on our knees we beg, (As recompense of our dear services, COMEDIES.-VOL. II. JI Exit. 460 [ACT II. A WINTER'S TALE. Past, and to come,) that you do change this purpose; Which, being so horrible, so bloody, must Lead on to some foul issue: We all kneel. LEON. I am a feather for each wind that blows: Shall I live on, to see this bastard kneel ANT. And call me father? Than curse it then. Better burn it now, But, be it; let it live: It shall not neither. You, sir, come you hither; You, that have been so tenderly officious With lady Margery, your midwife, there, To save this bastard's life: for 't is a bastard, So sure as this beard's grey 2,-what will you To save this brat's life? Anything, my lord, That my ability may undergo, And nobleness impose: at least, thus much,- I'll pawn the little blood which I have left To save the innocent: anything possible. LEON. It shall be possible: Swear by this sword, Thou wilt perform my bidding. ANT. adventure I will, my lord. LEON. Mark, and perform it; (seest thou?) for the fail Of any point in 't shall not only be Death to thyself, but to thy lewd-tongued wife; Whom, for this time, we pardon. We enjoin thee, As thou art liegeman to us, that thou carry This female bastard hence; and that thou bear it To some remote and desert place, quite out Of our dominions; and that there thou leave it, Without more mercy, to its own protection, And favour of the climate. As by strange fortune It came to us, I do in justice charge thee,— On thy soul's peril, and thy body's torture,- That thou commend it strangely to some place Where chance may nurse, or end it: Take it up. ANT. I swear to do this, though a present death Had been more merciful.-Come on, poor babe: Some powerful spirit instruct the kites and ravens To be thy nurses! Wolves and bears, they say, Casting their savageness aside, bave done Like offices of pity.-Sir, be prosperous In more than this deed does require! and blessing, Against this cruelty, fight on thy side, [TO ANTIGONUS. a Leontes here probably points to the beard of Antigonus. This is the reading of the early copies; but it might be a misprint for thy. SCENE III.] 461 A WINTER'S TALE. Poor thing, condemn'd to loss a ! LEON. Another's issue. 1 ATTEND. [Exit, with the Child. No, I'll not rear Please your highness, posts, From those you sent to the oracle, are come An hour since: Cleomenes and Dion, Being well arriv'd from Delphos, are both landed, Hasting to the court. 1 LORD. So please you, sir, their speed Twenty-three days Hath been beyond account. LEON. They have been absent: 't is good speed; foretells The great Apollo suddenly will have The truth of this appear. Prepare you, lords; Summon a session, that we may arraign Our most disloyal lady: for, as she hath Been publicly accus'd, so shall she have A just and open trial. While she lives, My heart will be a burthen to me. And think upon my bidding. Leave me; a Loss. We have the word repeated in the third Act:- "Poor wretch, That, for thy mother's fault, art thus expos'd To loss, and what may follow!" [Exeunt. This passage shows that loss does not here mean destruction-a final calamity; for something may follow. It probably means exposure. II 2 [SCENE III. "What have we here?"] ACT III. SCENE I.-Sicilia. A Street. Enter CLEOMENES and DION. CLEO. The climate 's delicate; the air most sweet; Fertile the isle; the temple much surpassing The common praise it bears. DION. I shall report, For most it caught me, the celestial habits, (Methinks I so should term them,) and the reverence SCENE II.] 463 A WINTER'S TALE. Of the grave wearers. O, the sacrifice! How ceremonious, solemn, and unearthly It was i' the offering! CLEO. But, of all, the burst And the ear-deafening voice o' the oracle, Kin to Jove's thunder, so surpris'd my sense, That I was nothing. DION. If the event o' the journey Prove as successful to the queen,-O, be 't so ! - As it hath been to us rare, pleasant, speedy, The time is worth the use on 't. CLEO. Great Apollo, Turn all to the best! These proclamations, So forcing faults upon Hermione, I little like. DION. The violent carriage of it Will clear, or end, the business: When the oracle (Thus by Apollo's great divine seal'd up) Shall the contents discover, something rare Even then will rush to knowledge. And gracious be the issue! Go,-fresh horses; [Exeunt. SCENE II.—The same. A Court of Justice. LEONTES, Lords, and Officers, appear, properly seated. LEON. This sessions (to our great grief, we pronounce) Even pushes 'gainst our heart: The party tried, The daughter of a king; our wife; and one Of us too much belov'd.--Let us be clear'd Of being tyrannous, since we so openly. Proceed in justice; which shall have due course, Even a to the guilt, or the purgation. Produce the prisoner. OFFI. It is his highness' pleasure that the queen Appear in person here in court.—Silence! HERMIONE is brought in, guarded; PAULINA and Ladies, attending. LEON. Read the indictment. OFFI. "Hermione, queen to the worthy Leontes, king of Sicilia, thou art here accused and arraigned of high treason, in committing adultery with Polix- enes, king of Bohemia; and conspiring with Camillo to take away the life a Even-equal, indifferent. 464 [ACT III. A WINTER'S TALE. of our sovereign lord the king, thy royal husband: the pretence a thereof being by circumstances partly laid open, thou, Hermione, contrary to the faith and allegiance of a true subject, didst counsel and aid them, for their better safety, to fly away by night." HER. Since what I am to say must be but that Which contradicts my accusation, and The testimony on my part no other But what comes from myself, it shall scarce boot me To say, "Not guilty;" mine integrity, Being counted falsehood, shall, as I express it, Be so receiv'd. But thus,-If powers divine Behold our human actions, as they do, I doubt not then but innocence shall make False accusation blush, and tyranny Tremble at patience.-You, my lord, best know, (Who least will seem to do so,) my past life Hath been as continent, as chaste, as true, As I am now unhappy; which is more Than history can pattern, though devis'd, And play'd, to take spectators: For behold me,- A fellow of the royal bed, which owe A moiety of the throne, a great king's daughter, The mother to a hopeful prince,-here standing, To prate and talk for life and honour 'fore Who please to come and hear. For life, I prize it, As I weigh grief, which I would spare: for honour, "T is a derivative from me to mine, And only that I stand for. I appeal To your own conscience, sir, before Polixenes Came to your court, how I was in your grace, How merited to be so; since he came, With what encounter so uncurrent I Have strain'd, to appear thus: if one jot beyond The bound of honour; or, in act or will, That way inclining; harden'd be the hearts Of all that hear me, and my near'st of kin Cry Fie! upon my grave! LEON. I ne'er heard yet, That any of these bolder vices wanted Less impudence to gainsay what they did, Than to perform it first. HER. a Pretence-design. That's true enough; The metaphor appears to be taken from an encounter of chivalry, in which one swerving from the accustomed course would be uncurrent. SCENE II.] 465 A WINTER'S TALE. Though 't is a saying, sir, not due to me. LEON. You will not own it. HER. More than mistress of, Which comes to me in name of fault, I must not At all acknowledge. For Polixenes, (With whom I am accus'd,) I do confess, I lov'd him, as in honour he requir'd, With such a kind of love as might become A lady like me; with a love, even such, So, and no other, as yourself commanded: Which not to have done, I think, had been in me Both disobedience and ingratitude, To you, and toward your friend; whose love had spoke, Even since it could speak, from an infant, freely, That it was yours. Now, for conspiracy, I know not how it tastes; though it be dish'd For me to try how: all I know of it Is, that Camillo was an honest man; And, why he left your court, the gods themselves, Wotting no more than I, are ignorant. LEON. You knew of his departure, as you know What you have underta'en to do in his absence. HER. Sir, You speak a language that I understand not: My life stands in the level of your dreams a, Which I 'll lay down. LEON. Your actions are my dreams; You had a bastard by Polixenes, And I but dream'd it :-As you were past all shame, (Those of your fact are so,) so past all truth; Which to deny, concerns more than avails: For as Thy brat hath been cast out, like to itself, No father owning it, (which is, indeed, More criminal in thee, than it,) so thou Shalt feel our justice; in whose easiest passage, Look for no less than death. HER. Sir, spare your threats; The bug which you would fright me with I seek. To me can life be no commodity: The crown and comfort of my life, your favour, I do give lost; for I do feel it gone, But know not how it went: My second joy, And first-fruits of my body, from his presence a Your dreams afford the level, the aim, of this accusation; and my life therefore stands within the range of the attack you direct against it. 466 [ACT III. A WINTER'S TALE. I am barr'd, like one infectious: My third comfort, Starr'd most unluckily, is from my breast, The innocent milk in its most innocent mouth, Haled out to murther: Myself on every post Proclaim'd a strumpet; with immodest hatred, The childbed privilege denied, which 'longs To women of all fashion :-Lastly, hurried Here to this place, i' the open air, before I have got strength of limit. Now, my liege, Tell me what blessings I have here alive, That I should fear to die? Therefore, proceed. But yet hear this; mistake me not;—No life, I prize it not a straw :-but for mine honour, (Which I would free,) if I shall be condemn'd Upon surmises; all proofs sleeping else, But what your jealousies awake; I tell you 'T is rigour, and not law. Your honours all, I do refer me to the oracle ; Apollo be my judge. 1 LORD. This your request Is altogether just: therefore, bring forth, And in Apollo's name, his oracle. HER. The emperor of Russia was my father: O, that he were alive, and here beholding His daughter's trial! that he did but see The flatness of my misery; yet with eyes Of pity, not revenge! [Exeunt certain Officers. Re-enter Officers, with CLEOMENES and DION. OFFI. You here shall swear upon this sword of justice, That you, Cleomenes and Dion, have Been both at Delphos; and from thence have brought This seal'd-up oracle, by the hand deliver'd Of great Apollo's priest; and that, since then, You have not dar'd to break the holy seal, Nor read the secrets in 't. CLEO., DION. All this we swear. LEON. Break up the seals, and read. OFFI. [Reads.] "Hermione is chaste, Polixenes blameless, Camillo a true sub- ject, Leontes a jealous tyrant, his innocent babe truly begotten; and the king shall live without an heir, if that which is lost be not found." LORDS. Now blessed be the great Apollo! HER. LEON. Hast thou read truth? OFFI. Prais'd! Ay, my lord; even so SCENE II.] 467 A WINTER'S TALE. + As it is here set down. LEON. There is no truth at all i' the oracle: The sessions shall proceed: this is mere falsehood. Enter a Servant, hastily. SERV. My lord the king, the king! LEON. What is the business? SERV. O sir, I shall be hated to report it: The prince your son, with mere conceit and fear Of the queen's speed ª, is gone. LEON. SERV. a How! gone? Is dead. LEON. Apollo 's angry; and the heavens themselves Do strike at my injustice. [HERMIONE faints.] How now there? PAUL. This news is mortal to the queen :-Look down, And see what death is doing. LEON. Take her hence: Her heart is but o'ercharg'd; she will recover. I have too much believ'd mine own suspicion: 'Beseech you tenderly apply to her Some remedies for life.-Apollo, pardon [Exeunt PAULINA and Ladies, with HERM. My great profaneness 'gainst thine oracle!—— I'll reconcile me to Polixenes; New woo my queen; recall the good Camillo, Whom I proclaim a man of truth, of mercy : For, being transported by my jealousies. To bloody thoughts and to revenge, I chose Camillo for the minister, to poison My friend Polixenes which had been done, But that the good mind of Camillo tardied My swift command, though I with death, and with Reward, did threaten and encourage him, Not doing it, and being done: he, most humane, And fill'd with honour, to my kingly guest Unclasp'd my practice; quit his fortunes here, Which you knew great; and to the hazard Of all incertainties himself commended, No richer than his honour:-How he glisters Thorough my rust! and how his piety Does my deeds make the blacker! PAUL. Re-enter PAULINA. Woe the while! O, cut my lace; lest my heart, cracking it, a of how the queen may speed-of the issue of this charge. 468 [AOT III. A WINTER'S TALE. Break too! 1 LORD. What fit is this, good lady? PAUL. What studied torments, tyrant, hast for me? What wheels? racks? fires? What flaying? boiling, In leads, or oils? what old or newer torture Must I receive; whose every word deserves To taste of thy most worst? Thy tyranny Together working with thy jealousies,- Fancies too weak for boys, too green and idle For girls of nine!-O, think what they have done, And then run mad, indeed; stark mad! for all Thy by-gone fooleries were but spices of it. That thou betray'dst Polixenes, 't was nothing; That did but show thee, of a fool, inconstant, And damnable ingrateful: nor was 't much, Thou wouldst have poison'd good Camillo's honour, To have him kill a king; poor trespasses, More monstrous standing by: whereof I reckon The casting forth to crows thy baby daughter, To be or none, or little; though a devil Would have shed water out of fire, ere done 't: Nor is 't directly laid to thee, the death Of the young prince; whose honourable thoughts (Thoughts high for one so tender) cleft the heart That could conceive a gross and foolish sire Blemish'd his gracious dam: this is not, no, Laid to thy answer: But the last,—O, lords, When I have said, cry Woe!—the queen, the queen, The sweetest, dearest creature 's dead; and vengeance for 't Not dropp'd down yet. 1 LORD. The higher powers forbid! PAUL. I say, she 's dead: I'll swear 't: if word, nor oath, Prevail not, go and see: if you can bring Tincture, or lustre, in her lip, her eye, Heat outwardly, or breath within, I 'll serve you As I would do the gods.-But, O thou tyrant! Do not repent these things; for they are heavier Than all thy woes can stir: therefore betake thee To nothing but despair. A thousand knees, Ten thousand years together, naked, fasting, Upon a barren mountain, and still winter In storm perpetual, could not move the gods To look that way thou wert. LEON. Go on, go on: Thou canst not speak too much; I have deserv'd Y SCENE II.] 469 A WINTER'S TALE, All tongues to talk their bitterest. 1 LORD. Say no more; Howe'er the business goes, you have made fault I' the boldness of your speech. PAUL. I am sorry for 't; All faults I make, when I shall come to know them, I do repent: Alas, I have show'd too much The rashness of a woman: he is touch'd To the noble heart.-What's gone, and what 's past help, Should be past grief: Do not receive affliction At my petition, I beseech you; rather Let me be punish'd, that have minded you Of what you should forget. Now, good my liege, Sir, royal sir, forgive a foolish woman: The love I bore your queen,-lo, fool, again! I'll speak of her no more, nor of your children; I 'll not remember you of my own lord, Who is lost too: Take your patience to you, And I'll say nothing. LEON. Thou didst speak but well, When most the truth; which I receive much better Than to be pitied of thee. Prithee, bring me To the dead bodies of my queen, and son: One grave shall be for both; upon them shall The causes of their death appear, unto Our shame perpetual: Once a day I 'll visit The chapel where they lie; and tears, shed there, Shall be my recreation: So long as nature Will bear up with this exercise, so long I daily vow to use it. а To these sorrows 2. Come, and lead me [Exeunt. a We follow the metrical arrangement of the original. In all the modern editions before the Pictorial,' the lines were distorted as follows:- "Shall be my recreation; so long as Nature will bear up with this exercise, So long I daily vow to use it. Come, And lead me to these sorrows." We claim no merit for having first pointed out these abominable corruptions of the text; but we do most earnestly exhort those who reprint Shakspere-and the very act of reprinting is in some sort a tribute to him—not to continue to present him in this mangled shape. If the freedom and variety of his versification were offensive to those who had been trained in the school of Pope, let it be remembered that we have now come back to the proper estimation of a nobler rhythm; and that Shakspere, of all the great dramatists, appears to have held the true mean, between a syl- labic monotony on the one hand, and a licence running into prose on the other. 470 [ACT III. A WINTER'S TALE. SCENE III.-Bohemia. A desert Country near the Sea. Enter ANTIGONUS, with the Babe; and a Mariner. ANT. Thou art perfect a then, our ship hath touch'd upon The deserts of Bohemia ? MAR. Ay, my lord; and fear We have landed in ill time: the skies look grimly, And threaten present blusters. In my conscience, The heavens with that we have in hand are angry, And frown upon us. ANT. Their sacred wills be done!-Go, get aboard; Look to thy bark; I'll not be long before I call upon thee. MAR. Make your best haste; and go not ANT. Too far i' the land: 't is like to be loud weather; Besides, this place is famous for the creatures Of prey, that keep upon 't. I'll follow instantly. MAR. ANT. Go thou away : I am glad at heart Come, poor babe: To be so rid o' the business. I have heard, (but not believ'd,) the spirits of the dead May walk again: if such thing be, thy mother Appear'd to me last night; for ne'er was dream So like a waking. To me comes a creature, Sometimes her head on one side, some another; I never saw a vessel of like sorrow, So fill'd, and so becoming: in pure white robes, Like very sanctity, she did approach My cabin where I lay: thrice bow'd before me; And, gasping to begin some speech, her eyes Became two spouts: the fury spent, anon Did this break from her: "Good Antigonus, Since fate, against thy better disposition, Hath made thy person for the thrower-out Of my poor babe, according to thine oath, Places remote enough are in Bohemia, There weep, and leave it crying; and, for the babe Is counted lost for ever, Perdita, I prithee, call 't: for this ungentle business, Put on thee by my lord, thou ne'er shalt see Thy wife Paulina more:"-and so, with shrieks, a Perfect-assured. [Exit. I SCENE III. 471 A WINTER'S TALE. She melted into air. Affrighted much, I did in time collect myself; and thought This was so, and no slumber. Dreams are toys; Yet, for this once, yea, superstitiously, I will be squar'd by this. I do believe Hermione hath suffer'd death; and that Apollo would, this being indeed the issue Of king Polixenes, it should here be laid, Either for life or death, upon the earth [Laying down the Child. [Laying down a bundle. Of its right father. Blossom, speed thee well! There lie; and there thy character: there these; Which may, if fortune please, both breed thee pretty, And still rest thine.—The storm begins:-Poor wretch, That, for thy mother's fault, art thus expos'd To loss, and what may follow!-Weep I cannot, But my heart bleeds: and most accurs'd am I, To be by oath enjoin'd to this.-Farewell! The day frowns more and more-thou 'rt like to have A lullaby too rough: I never saw The heavens so dim by day. A savage clamour!——— Well may I get aboard! I am gone for ever. This is the chase; Enter an old Shepherd. [Exit, pursued by a Bear. SHEP. I would there was no age between ten and three-and-twenty; or that youth would sleep out the rest: for there is nothing in the between but getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting.— Hark you now!-Would any but these boiled brains of nineteen and two- and-twenty hunt this weather? They have scared away two of my best sheep; which, I fear, the wolf will sooner find than the master; if any- where I have them, 't is by the sea-side, browzing of ivy. Good luck, an 't be thy will! what have we here? [Taking up the Child.] barneb; ; a very pretty barne! A boy, or a child, I wonder? a very pretty one: Sure, some scape: though I am not bookish, yet I can read waiting-gentlewoman in the scape. This has been some stair-work, some trunk-work, some behind-door-work: they were warmer that got this a Character-description-the writing which describes thee. b Barne-the Scotch bairn; a child baren or born. Mercy on 's, a A pretty one; • A child. Steevens says that he is told "that, in some of our inland counties, a female infant, in contradistinction to a male one, is still termed among the peasantry—a child." This use of the word was clearly the meaning of Shakspere. Nares observes upon the passage before us that the expression child" may perhaps be rather referred to the simplicity of the shepherd, reversing the common practice, than taken as an authority for it." We stated, in our former editions, that we could find no authority for the application of child in the text. But we are informed by a cor- respondent who dates from Wiveliscombe, Somerset, that "the word child (or chiel as they pro- nounce it) is still used by the peasantry of this part of Somerset, and the adjoining part of Devon, to denote a female infant." { 472 [ACT III. A WINTER'S TALE. than the poor thing is here. I'll take it up for pity: yet I'll tarry till my son come; he hollaed but even now. Whoa, ho hoa! Enter Clown. CLO. Hilloa, loa! SHEP. What, art so near? If thou 'lt see a thing to talk on when thou art dead and rotten, come hither. What ailest thou, man? CLO. I have seen two such sights, by sea, and by land;-but I am not to say, it is a sea, for it is now the sky; betwixt the firmament and it you cannot thrust a bodkin's point. SHEP. Why, boy, how is it? CLO. I would you did but see how it chafes, how it rages, how it takes up the shore! but that's not to the point! O, the most piteous cry of the poor souls! sometimes to see 'em, and not to see 'em: now the ship boring the moon with her main-mast; and anon swallowed with yest and froth, as you'd thrust a cork into a hogshead. And then for the land-service,-To see how the bear tore out his shoulder-bone; how he cried to me for help, and said his name was Antigonus, a nobleman :-But to make an end of the ship-to see how the sea flap-dragoned itª:-but, first, how the poor souls roared, and the sea mocked them;-and how the poor gentleman roared, and the bear mocked him, both roaring louder than the sea, or weather. SHEP. Name of mercy, when was this, boy? CLO. Now, now; I have not winked since I saw these sights: the men are not yet cold under water, nor the bear half dined on the gentleman; he's at it now. SHEP. Would I had been by, to have helped the old man! CLO. I would you had been by the ship side, to have helped her; there your charity would have lacked footing. Now bless Here's a SHEP. Heavy matters! heavy matters! but look thee here, boy. thyself; thou mett'st with things dying, I with things new born. sight for thee; look thee, a bearing cloth for a squire's child! look thee here! take up, take up, boy; open 't. So, let's see. It was told me, I should be rich by the fairies; this is some changeling :-open 't: What's within, boy? a Flap-dragoned it. In 'Love's Labour 's Lost' we have,-" Thou art easier swallowed than a flap-dragon." This was some inflammable substance floating on a goblet, to be gulped down in the wildness of the toper's revels. Falstaff says of Prince Henry that he "drinks off candle-ends for flap-dragons." The practice, however, was not always safe, if we may judge from the asser- tion of the captain in Rowley's 'Match at Midnight,' who says that his "corporal was lately choked at Delf by swallowing a flap-dragon.” b Bearing-cloth. Percy explains this as "the fine mantle or cloth with which a child is usually covered when it is carried to the church to be baptised." с Changeling—a child changed. The allusion is here to the superstition that children were sometimes changed by fairies. So in 'A Midsummer-Night's Dream,'- "A lovely boy, stol'n from an Indian king; She never had so sweet a changeling." SCENE III. 1.] 473 A WINTER'S TALE. CLO. You're a made a old man; if the sins of your youth are forgiven you, you 're well to live. Gold! all gold! SHEP. This is fairy gold, boy, and 't will prove so: up with it, keep it close; home, home, the next way. We are lucky, boy, and to be so still requires nothing but secrecy.-Let my sheep go:-Come, good boy, the next way home. CLO. Go you the next way with your findings; I'll go see if the bear be gone from the gentleman, and how much he hath eaten they are never curst, but when they are hungry: if there be any of him left, I 'll bury it. SHEP. That's a good deed: If thou mayst discern, by that which is left of him, what he is, fetch me to the sight of him. CLO. Marry, will I; and you shall help to put him i' the ground. SHEP. "'T is a lucky day, boy; and we 'll do good deeds on 't. a Made. In the original, mad. The correction is by Theobald. b Curst-mischievous. [Exeunt. [SCENE III. "I am gone for ever."] GRAY. SE. ** [Time, as Chorus.] ACT IV. Enter Time, as Chorus. TIME. I, that please some, try all,—both joy and terror Of good and bad,—that make, and unfold error,- Now take upon me, in the name of Time, To use my wings. Impute it not a crime To me, or my swift passage, that I slide O'er sixteen years, and leave the growth untried Of that wide gap; since it is in my power To o'erthrow law, and in one self-born hour To plant and o'erwhelm custom: Let me pass The same I am, ere ancient'st order was, SCENE I.] 475 A WINTER'S TALE. Or what is now receiv'd: I witness to The times that brought them in: so shall I do To the freshest things now reigning; and make stale The glistering of this present, as my tale Now seems to it. I turn my glass; Your patience this allowing, and give my scene such growing As you had slept between. Leontes leaving The effects of his fond jealousies; so grieving, That he shuts up himself; imagine me, Gentle spectators, that I now may be In fair Bohemia; and remember well, I mentioned a son o' the king's, which Florizel I now name to you; and with speed so pace To speak of Perdita, now grown in grace Equal with wondering: What of her ensues I list not prophesy; but let Time's news Be known when 't is brought forth :-a shepherd's daughter, And what to her adheres, which follows after, Is the argument of time: Of this allowª, If ever you have spent time worse ere now; If never yet, that Time himself doth say, He wishes earnestly you never may. SCENE I.—Bohemia. A Room in the Palace of Polixenes. Enter POLIXENES and CAMILLO. [Exit. POL. I pray thee, good Camillo, be no more importunate: 't is a sickness. denying thee anything; a death to grant this. CAM. It is fifteen years since I saw my country. Though I have, for the most part, been aired abroad, I desire to lay my bones there. Besides, the penitent king, my master, hath sent for me: to whose feeling sorrows I might be some allay, or I o'erween to think so; which is another spur to my departure. POL. As thou lovest me, Camillo, wipe not out the rest of thy services, by leaving me now: the need I have of thee thine own goodness hath made; better not to have had thee than thus to want thee: thou, having made me businesses which none without thee can sufficiently manage, must either stay to execute them thyself, or take away with thee the very services thou hast done which if I have not enough considered, (as too much I cannot,) to be more thankful to thee shall be my study; and my profit therein, the heaping friendships. Of that fatal country, Sicilia, prithee speak no more: whose very naming punishes me with the remembrance of that penitent, as a Allow-approve. COMEDIES.-VOL. II. K K 476 [ACT IV. A WINTER'S TALE. thou callest him, and reconciled king, my brother; whose loss of his most precious queen and children are even now to be afresh lamented. Say to me, when sawest thou the prince Florizel my son? Kings are no less unhappy, their issue not being gracious, than they are in losing them when they have approved their virtues. CAM. Sir, it is three days since I saw the prince: What his happier affairs may be are to me unknown: but I have, missingly, noted he is of late much retired from court; and is less frequent to his princely exercises than formerly he hath appeared. POL. I have considered so much, Camillo, and with some care; so far, that I have eyes under my service which look upon his removedness, from whom I have this intelligence: That he is seldom from the house of a most homely shepherd; a man, they say, that from very nothing, and beyond the imagination of his neighbours, is grown into an unspeakable estate. CAM. I have heard, sir, of such a man, who hath a daughter of most rare note: the report of her is extended more than can be thought to begin from such a cottage. POL. That's likewise part of my intelligence. But I fear the angle that plucks our son thither. Thou shalt accompany us to the place: where we will, not appearing what we are, have some question with the shepherd; from whose simplicity I think it not uneasy to get the cause of my son's resort thither. Prithee, be my present partner in this business, and lay aside the thoughts of Sicilia. CAM. I willingly obey your command. POL. My best Camillo !—We must disguise ourselves. SCENE II.-The same. A Road near the Shepherd's Cottage. Enter AUTOLYcus, singing. When daffodils begin to peer, With heigh! the doxy over the dale, Why then comes in the sweet o' the year; For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale ". The white sheet bleaching on the hedge, With heigh! the sweet birds, O, how they sing! Doth set my pugging tooth on edge; For a quart of ale is a dish for a king. [Exeunt. Missingly. Steevens explains this, "I have observed him at intervals." But is it not rather -missing him, I have noted he is of late much retired from court? (C ↳ The winter's pale. Farmer explains this," the red, the spring blood, now reigns o'er the parts lately under the dominion of winter." Daffodils, as Perdita tells us, come before the swallow dares." The spring which Autolycus describes is the early spring, when winter still holds a partial reign, and the pale-boundary-which divides it from spring is not yet broken up. Pugging. This appears a flash word which the commentators cannot explain. A puggard is a thief. с SCENE II.] 477 A WINTER'S TALE. The lark that tirra-lirra chants, With heigh! with heighª! the thrush and the jay: Are summer songs for me and my aunts, While we lie tumbling in the hay. I have served prince Florizel, and, in my time, wore three-pile; but now I am out of service: But shall I go mourn for that, my dear? The pale moon shines by night : And when I wander here and there, I then do most go right. If tinkers may have leave to live, And bear the sow-skin bowget; Then my account I well may give, And in the stocks avouch it. My My traffic is sheets; when the kite builds, look to lesser linen c. father named me Autolycus; who, being as I am, littered under Mercury, was likewise a snapper up of unconsidered trifles: With die, and drab, I purchased this caparison; and my revenue is the silly cheat: Gallows, and knock, are too powerful on the highway: beating, and hanging, are terrors to me; for the life to come, I sleep out the thought of it.-A prize! a prize! Enter Clown. [Aside. pound of currants; But my father hath She hath made me CLO. Let me see:-Every 'leven wether-tods; every tod yields-pound and odd shilling: fifteen hundred shorn,-What comes the wool to? AUT. If the springe hold, the cock 's mine. CLO. I cannot do 't without counters.-Let me see; what am I to buy for our sheep-shearing feast? Three pound of sugar; five rice -What will this sister of mine do with rice? made her mistress of the feast, and she lays it on. four-and-twenty nosegays for the shearers: three-man song-men all³, and very good ones; but they are most of them means and bases: but one Puritan amongst them, and he sings psalms to hornpipes. I must have saffron, to colour the warden pies d; mace,-dates,-none; that's out of my note: nutmegs, seven; a race or two of ginger; but that I may beg;- pound of prunes, and as many of raisins o' the sun. AUT. O, that ever I was born! CLO. I' the name of me, -four [Grovelling on the ground. AUT. O, help me, help me! pluck but off these rags; and then, death, death! CLO. Alack, poor soul! thou hast need of more rags to lay on thee, rather than have these off. a The second folio introduces the second" with heigh." C Three-pile-rich velvet. Autolycus has his eye upon the "white sheets." The kites may take the smaller linen for their nests. a Warden pies. Warden was the name of a pear. KK 2 478 [ACT IV. A WINTER'S TALE. AUT. O, sir, the loathsomeness of them offends me more than the stripes I have received; which are mighty ones, and millions. CLO. Alas, poor man! a million of beating may come to a great matter. AUT. I am robbed, sir, and beaten; my money and apparel ta'en from me, and these detestable things put upon me. CLO. What, by a horse-man, or a foot-man ? AUT. A foot-man, sweet sir, a foot-man. CLO. Indeed, he should be a foot-man, by the garments he hath left with thee; if this be a horse-man's coat, it hath seen very hot service. Lend me thy hand, I'll help thee: come, lend me thy hand. AUT. O! good sir, tenderly, oh ! CLO. Alas, poor soul! [Helping him. AUT. O, good sir, softly, good sir: I fear, sir, my shoulder-blade is out. CLO. How now? canst stand? AUT. Softly, dear sir [picks his pocket]; good sir, softly; you ha' done me a charitable office. CLO. Dost lack any money? I have a little money for thee. AUT. No, good sweet sir; no, I beseech you, sir: I have a kinsman not past three-quarters of a mile hence, unto whom I was going; I shall there have money, or anything I want: Offer me no money, I pray you; that kills my heart. CLO. What manner of fellow was he that robbed you? AUT. A fellow, sir, that I have known to go about with trol-my-dames: I knew him once a servant of the prince; I cannot tell, good sir, for which of his virtues it was, but he was certainly whipped out of the court. CLO. His vices, you would say; there's no virtue whipped out of the court: they cherish it, to make it stay there; and yet it will no more but abide ª. AUT. Vices, I would say, sir. I know this man well: he hath been since an ape-bearer'; then a process-server, a bailiff; then he compassed a motion of the prodigal son ¹º, and married a tinker's wife within a mile where my land and living lies; and, having flown over many knavish professions, he settled only in rogue: some call him Autolycus. CLO. Out upon him! Prig, for my life, prig: he haunts wakes, fairs, and bear- baitings. AUT. Very true, sir; he, sir, he; that's the rogue that put me into this apparel. CLO. Not a more cowardly rogue in all Bohemia; if you had but looked big, and spit at him, he 'd have run. AUT. I must confess to you, sir, I am no fighter; I am false of heart that way; and that he knew, I warrant him. CLO. How do you now? AUT. Sweet sir, much better than I was; I can stand, and walk: I will even take my leave of you, and pace softly towards my kinsman's. a Abide-sojourn. SCENE III.] 479 A WINTER'S TALE. CLO. Shall I bring thee on the way? AUT. No, good-faced sir; no, sweet sir. CLO. Then fare thee well; I must go buy spices for our sheep-shearing. AUT. Prosper you, sweet sir!-[Exit Clown.]-Your purse is not hot enough to purchase your spice. I'll be with you at your sheep-shearing too: If I make not this cheat bring out another, and the shearers prove sheep, let me be unrolled, and my name put in the book of virtue! Jog on, jog on, the foot-path way", And merrily hentª the stile-a: A merry heart goes all the day, Your sad tires in a mile-a. [Exit. SCENE III.-The same. A Shepherd's Cottage. Enter FLORIZEL and PERDITA. FLO. These your unusual weeds to each part of you Do give a life: no shepherdess; but Flora, Peering in April's front. This your sheep-shearing Is as a meeting of the petty gods, PER. FLO. PER. And you the queen on 't. Sir, my gracious lord, To chide at your extremes it not becomes me; O, pardon, that I name them: your high self, The gracious mark o' the land, you have obscur'd With a swain's wearing; and me, poor lowly maid, Most goddess-like prank'd up b: But that our feasts In every mess have folly, and the feeders Digest it with a custom, I should blush To see you so attir'd; sworn, I think, To show myself a glass. I bless the time, When my good falcon made her flight across Thy father's ground. Now Jove afford you cause ! To me, the difference forges dread; your greatness Hath not been us'd to fear. Even now I tremble To think, your father, by some accident, Should pass this way, as you did: O, the fates! How would he look, to see his work, so noble, Vilely bound up? What would he say? Or how Should I, in these my borrow'd flaunts, behold a Hent-take hold of. ↳ Prank'd up-dressed splendidly-decorated. 480 [ACT IV. A WINTER'S TALE. FLO. The sternness of his presence? Apprehend Nothing but jollity. The gods themselves, Humbling their deities to love, have taken The shapes of beasts upon them: Jupiter Became a bull, and bellow'd; the green Neptune A ram, and bleated; and the fire-rob'd god, Golden Apollo, a poor humble swain, As I seem now: Their transformations Were never for a piece of beauty rarer; Nor in a way so chaste: since my desires Run not before mine honour; nor my lusts Burn hotter than my faith. PER. FLO. O but, sir, Your resolution cannot hold, when 't is Oppos'd, as it must be, by the power o' the king; One of these two must be necessities, Which then will speak; that you must change this purpose, Or I my life. Thou dearest Perdita, With these forc'd thoughts, I prithee, darken not The mirth o' the feast: Or I'll be thine, my fair, Or not my father's: for I cannot be PER. Mine own, nor anything to any, if I be not thine: to this I am most constant, Though destiny say No. Be merry, gentle; Strangle such thoughts as these, with anything That you behold the while. Your guests are coming : Lift up your countenance; as it were the day Of celebration of that nuptial, which We two have sworn shall come. Stand you auspicious ! O, lady fortune, Enter Shepherd, with POLIXENES and CAMILLO disguised; Clown, MOPSA, FLO. DORCAS, and others. See, your guests approach: Address yourself to entertain them sprightly, And let's be red with mirth. SHEP. Fie, daughter! when my old wife liv'd, upon This day she was both pantler, butler, cook; Both dame and servant: welcom'd all: serv'd all: Would sing her song, and dance her turn; now here, At upper end o' the table, now, i' the middle; On his shoulder, and his: her face o' fire SCENE III.] 481 A WINTER'S TALE. With labour; and the thing she took to quench it, She would to each one sip: You are retir'd As if you were a feasted one, and not The hostess of the meeting: Pray you, bid These unknown friends to us welcome: for it is A way to make us better friends, more known. Come, quench your blushes; and present yourself That which you are, mistress o' the feast: Come on, And bid us welcome to your sheep-shearing, PER. POL. As your good flock shall prosper. Sir, welcome a! It is my father's will I should take on me The hostess-ship o' the day :-You 're welcome, sir! Give me those flowers there, Dorcas.-Reverend sirs, For you there's rosemary, and rue; these keep Seeming, and savour, all the winter long: Grace, and remembrance, be to you both, And welcome to our shearing! PER. POL. PER. POL. b Shepherdess, (A fair one are you,) well you fit our ages With flowers of winter. Sir, the year growing ancient,- Not yet on summer's death, nor on the birth Of trembling winter,-the fairest flowers o' the season Are our carnations, and streak'd gillyvors", Which some call nature's bastards: of that kind Our rustic garden 's barren; and I care not To get slips of them. Do you neglect them? Wherefore, gentle maiden, For I have heard it said, There is an art which, in their piedness, shares With great creating nature. Say, there be; Yet nature is made better by no mean, But nature makes that mean: so, over that art, Which, you say, adds to nature, is an art That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry A gentler scion to the wildest stock; And make conceive a bark of baser kind By bud of nobler race: This is an art Which does mend nature,-change it rather: but a The modern reading is, Welcome, sir. [TO POL. [TO CAMILLO. Gillyvors. Some of the old authors write gillyflower, some gillofre. Gillyvor is an old form of the word. The folio gives it as a contraction-gilly'vor. 482 [ACT IV. A WINTER'S TALE. PER. The art itself is nature. So it is. POL. Then make your garden rich in gillyvors, And do not call them bastards. PER. I'll not put The dibble in earth to set one slip of them: No more than, were I painted, I would wish This youth should say, 't were well; and only therefore Desire to breed by me.-Here 's flowers for you; Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram ; The marigold, that goes to bed with the sun, And with him rises weeping; these are flowers Of middle summer, and, I think, they are given To men of middle age: You are very welcome. CAM. I should leave grazing, were I of your flock, And only live by gazing. PER. FLO. Out, alas! You'd be so lean, that blasts of January Would blow you through and through.-Now, my fairest friend, I would I had some flowers o' the spring, that might Become your time of day; and yours, and yours That wear upon your virgin branches yet Your maidenheads growing:-O, Proserpina ¹2 For the flowers now, that, frighted, thou lett'st fall From Dis's waggon! daffodils, That come before the swallow dares, and take The winds of March with beauty; violets, dim, But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes, Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses, That die unmarried, ere they can behold Bright Phoebus in his strength, a malady Most incident to maids; bold oxlips, and The crown-imperial; lilies of all kinds, The flower-de-luce being one! O! these I lack, To make you garlands of; and, my sweet friend, To strew him o'er and o'er. What! like a corse? PER. No, like a bank, for love to lie and play on; FLO. Not like a corse or if,-not to be buried, But quick, and in mine arms. Come, take your flowers: Methinks, I play as I have seen them do, In Whitsun' pastorals: sure, this robe of mine Does change my disposition. What you do Still betters what is done. When you speak, sweet, SCENE III.] 483 A WINTER'S TALE. PER. FLO. I'd have you do it ever: when you sing, I'd have you buy and sell so; so give alms; Pray so; and, for the ordering your affairs, To sing them too: When you do dance, I wish you A wave o' the sea, that you might ever do Nothing but that; move still, still so, And own no other function: Each your doing, So singular in each particular, Crowns what you are doing in the present deeds, That all your acts are queens. O Doricles, Your praises are too large: but that your youth, And the true blood which peeps fairly through 't, Do plainly give you out an unstain'd shepherd, With wisdom I might fear, my Doricles, You woo'd me the false way. I think, you have As little skill a to fear, as I have purpose To put you to 't.-But, come; our dance, I pray : Your hand, my Perdita: so turtles pair, That never mean to part. PER. I'll swear for 'em. POL. This is the prettiest low-born lass that ever Ran on the green sward: nothing she does or seems, But smacks of something greater than herself; Too noble for this place. CAM. He tells her something CLO. That makes her blood look out b: Good sooth, she is The queen of curds and cream. Come on, strike up. DOR. Mopsa must be your mistress: marry, garlic, To mend her kissing with. Mop. Now, in good time! CLO. Not a word, a word; we stand upon our manners.- Come, strike up. Here a Dance of Shepherds and Shepherdesses. POL. Pray, good shepherd, what fair swain is this Which dances with your daughter? a Skill. Warburton explains skill to mean reason. Warner's 'Continuance of Albion's England.' [Music. Mr. Dyce supports this by a quotation from b Look out. The original has look on 't. We are not quite sure that Theobald's correction is necessary. The idea reminds one of the fine lines in Donne: "Her pure and eloquent blood Spoke in her veins, and such expression wrought, You might have almost said her body thought.” 484 [ACT IV. A WINTER'S TALE. SHEP. They call him Doricles; and boasts himself To have a worthy feeding a: but I have it POL. Upon his own report, and I believe it; He looks like sooth b: He says, he loves my daughter; I think so too: for never gaz'd the moon Upon the water, as he 'll stand, and read, As 't were, my daughter's eyes: and, to be plain, I think there is not half a kiss to choose Who loves another best. She dances featly. SHEP. So she does anything; though I report it, That should be silent: if young Doricles Do light upon her, she shall bring him that Which he not dreams of. Enter a Servant. SERV. O master, if you did but hear the pedlar at the door, you would never dance again after a tabor and pipe; no, the bagpipe could not move you: he sings several tunes faster than you 'll tell money; he utters them as he had eaten ballads, and all men's ears grew to his tunes. CLO. He could never come better: he shall come in: I love a ballad but even too well; if it be doleful matter, merrily set down, or a very pleasant thing indeed, and sung lamentably. SERV. He hath songs, for man, or woman, of all sizes; no milliner can so fit his customers with gloves: he has the prettiest love-songs for maids; so without bawdry, which is strange; with such delicate burthens of "dildos and fadings: "13 'jump her and thump her;" and where some stretch- mouth'd rascal would, as it were, mean mischief, and break a foul gap into the matter, he makes the maid to answer, "Whoop, do me no harm, good man;" puts him off, slights him, with "Whoop, do me no harm, good man.” POL. This is a brave fellow. CLO. Believe me, thou talkest of an admirable-conceited fellow. Has he any unbraided wares? SERV. He hath ribands of all the colours i' the rainbow; points, more than all the lawyers in Bohemia can learnedly handle, though they come to him by the gross; inkles, caddisses, cambrics, lawns; why, he sings them over, as they were gods or goddesses; you would think a smock were a she-angel: he so chants to the sleeve-hand, and the work about the square on 't. CLO. Prithee, bring him in; and let him approach singing. PER. Forewarn him, that he use no scurrilous words in his tunes. CLO. You have of these pedlars, that have more in them than you'd think, sister. PER. Ay, good brother, or go about to think. Feeding-pasture. b Sooth-truth. SCENE IIIII485 A WINTER'S TALE. .] . Enter AUTOLYCUS, singing. Lawn, as white as driven snow; Cyprus, black as e'er was crow: Gloves, as sweet as damask roses; Masks for faces, and for noses ; Bugle-bracelet, necklace-amber, Perfume for a lady's chamber: Golden quoifs, and stomachers, For my lads to give their dears; Pins, and poking-sticks of steel14, What maids lack from head to heel: Come, buy of me, come; come buy, come buy; Buy, lads, or else your lasses cry: Come, buy. CLO. If I were not in love with Mopsa, thou shouldst take no money of me; but being enthralled as I am, it will also be the bondage of certain ribands and gloves. Mop. I was promised them against the feast; but they come not too late now. DOR. He hath promised you more than that, or there be liars. MOP. He hath paid you all he promised you: may be, he has paid you more; which will shame you to give him again. CLO. Is there no manners left among maids? will they wear their plackets, where they should bear their faces? Is there not milking-time, when you are going to bed, or kiln-hole, to whistle of a these secrets; but you must be tittle-tattling before all our guests? 'T is well they are whispering: Clamour your tongues, and not a word more. MOP. I have done. Come, you promised me a tawdry lace, and a pair of sweet gloves 15 CLO. Have I not told thee how I was cozened by the way, and lost all my money? Aur. And, indeed, sir, there are cozeners abroad; therefore it behoves men to be wary. CLO. Fear not thou, man, thou shalt lose nothing here. AUT. I hope so, sir; for I have about me many parcels of charge. CLO. What hast here? ballads? Mop. Pray now, buy some: I love a ballad in print, a'-life; for then we are sure they are true. AUT. Here's one to a very doleful tune, How a usurer's wife was brought to bed a Whistle of. So the original. The modern editions read whistle off. b Clamour your tongues. Gifford maintains that this is a misprint for charm your tongues. We have in 'Henry VI., Part III.,' (l Peace, wilful boy, or I will charm your tongue." But the word charm in the text before us was not likely to be mistaken for clamour. Nares says the "expression is taken from bell-ringing; it is now contracted to clam, and in that form is com- mon among ringers. The bells are said to be clam'd, when, after a course of rounds or changes, they are all pulled off at once, and give a general clash or clam, by which the peal is concluded. This is also called firing, and is frequently practised on rejoicing days. As this clam is succeeded by a silence, it exactly suits the sense of the passage in which the unabbreviated word occurs." 486 [ACT IV. A WINTER'S TALE. of twenty money-bags at a burthen; and how she longed to. eat adders' heads, and toads carbonadoed. Mop. Is it true, think you? AUT. Very true; and but a month old. DOR. Bless me from marrying a usurer! AUT. Here's the midwife's name to 't, one mistress Taleporter; and five or six honest wives that were present: Why should I carry lies abroad? Mor. 'Pray you now, buy it. CLO. Come on, lay it by: And let's first see more ballads; we 'll buy the other things anon. AUT. Here's another ballad, Of a fish, that appeared upon the coast, on Wednesday the fourscore of April, forty thousand fathom above water, and sung this ballad against the hard hearts of maids: it was thought she was a woman, and was turned into a cold fish, for she would not exchange flesh with one that loved her: The ballad is very pitiful, and as true. DOR. Is it true too, think you? AUT. Five justices' hands at it; and witnesses, more than my pack will hold. CLO. Lay it by too: Another. AUT. This is a merry ballad; but a very pretty one. Mor. Let's have some merry ones. AUT. Why, this is a passing merry one: and goes to the tune of Two maids wooing a man:' there's scarce a maid westward, but she sings it; 't is in request, I can tell you. MOP. We can both sing it; if thou 'It bear a part, thou shalt hear; 't is in three parts. DOR. We had the tune on 't a month ago. Aur. I can bear my part; you must know, 't is my occupation: have at it with you. SONG. A. Get you hence, for I must go; Where it fits not you to know. D. Whither? M. O, whither ? D. Whither? M. It becomes thy oath full well, Thou to me thy secrets tell: D. Me too, let me go thither. M. Or thou go'st to the grange, or mill: D. If to either, thou dost ill. A. Neither. D. What, neither? A. Neither. D. Thou hast sworn my love to be; M. Thou hast sworn it more to me: Then whither go'st? say, whither? SCENE III.] 487 A WINTER'S TALE. CLO. We'll have this song out anon by ourselves: My father and the gentlemen are in sad talk, and we'll not trouble them: Come, bring away thy pack after me. Wenches, I'll buy for you both :-Pedlar, let's have the first choice.-Follow me, girls. Aur. And you shall pay well for 'em. Will you buy any tape, Or lace for your cape, My dainty duck, my dear-a? Any silk, any thread, Any toys for your head, Of the new'st, and fin'st, fin'st wear-a? Come to the pedlar; Money 's a medler, That doth utter all men's ware-a. [Aside. [Exeunt Clown, AUTOLYCUS, DORCAS, and Mopsa. Enter a Servant. ་ SERV. Master, there is three carters, three shepherds, three neatherds, three swineherds, that have made themselves all men of hair 16; they call them- selves saltiers: and they have a dance which the wenches say is a gallimaufry a of gambols, because they are not in 't; but they themselves are o' the mind, (if it be not too rough for some, that know little but bowling,) it will please plentifully. SHEP. Away! we'll none on 't; here has been too much homely foolery already : —I know, sir, we weary you. POL. You weary those that refresh us: Pray, let's see these four threes of herdsmen. SERV. One three of them, by their own report, sir, hath danced before the king; and not the worst of the three but jumps twelve foot and a half by the squire b. SHEP. Leave your prating: since these good men are pleased, let them come in; but quickly now. SERV. Why, they stay at door, sir. [Exit. Re-enter Servant, with Twelve Rustics, habited like Satyrs. They dance, and then exeunt. POL. O, father, you'll know more of that hereafter. Is it not too far gone?—'T is time to part them. He's simple and tells much. [Aside.]-How now, fair shepherd? Your heart is full of something that does take Your mind from feasting. Sooth, when I was young, a Gallimaufry-a confused heap of things. b Squire-foot-rule. C During the dance Polixenes and the Shepherd have been conversing apart, and this is a con- tinuation of their supposed dialogue. 488 [ACT IV. A WINTER'S TALE. And handed love as you do, I was wont To load my she with knacks: I would have ransack'd The pedlar's silken treasury, and have pour'd it To her acceptance; you have let him go, And nothing marted with him: If your lass Interpretation should abuse, and call this Your lack of love or bounty, you were straited For a reply, at least, if you make a care Of happy holding her. FLO. Old sir, I know She prizes not such trifles as these are: The gifts she looks from me are pack'd and lock'd Up in my heart; which I have given already, But not deliver'd.—O, hear me breathe my life Before this ancient sir, who, it should seem, Hath sometime lov'd: I take thy hand; this hand, As soft as dove's down, and as white as it; Or Ethiopian's tooth, or the fann'd snow, That's bolted by the northern blasts twice o'er. POL. What follows this?— FLO. How prettily the young swain seems to wash The hand was fair before!-I have put you out: But to your protestation; let me hear What you profess. Do, and be witness to 't. POL. And this my neighbour too? FLO. And he, and more Than he, and men; the earth, the heavens, and all: That, were I crown'd the most imperial monarch, Thereof most worthy; were I the fairest youth POL. That ever made eye swerve; had force, and knowledge, More than was ever man's, I would not prize them, Without her love: for her, employ them all; Commend them, and condemn them, to her service, Or to their own perdition. CAM. This shows a sound affection. SHEP. PER. Say you the like to him? Fairly offer'd. But, my daughter, I cannot speak So well, nothing so well; no, nor mean better: By the pattern of mine own thoughts I cut out The purity of his. SHEP. Take hands, a bargain;- And, friends unknown, you shall bear witness to 't: SCENE III.] 489 A WINTER'S TALE. FLO. I give my daughter to him, and will make Her portion equal his. O, that must be I' the virtue of your daughter: one being dead, I shall have more than you can dream of yet; Enough then for your wonder: But, come on, Contract us 'fore these witnesses. SHEP. POL. FLO. And, daughter, yours. Have you a father? POL. Knows he of this? FLO. POL. Methinks, a father FLO. POL. FLO. Come, your hand; Soft, swain, awhile, 'beseech you; I have: But what of him? He neither does, nor shall. Is, at the nuptial of his son, a guest That best becomes the table. Pray you, once more ; Is not your father grown incapable Of reasonable affairs? is he not stupid With age, and altering rheums? Can he speak? hear? Know man from man? dispute his own estate? Lies he not bed-rid? and again does nothing, But what he did being childish? No, good sir; He has his health, and ampler strength, indeed, Than most have of his age. By my white beard, You offer him, if this be so, a wrong Something unfilial: Reason, my son Should choose himself a wife; but as good reason, The father (all whose joy is nothing else But fair posterity) should hold some counsel In such a business. I yield all this; But, for some other reasons, my grave sir, Which 't is not fit you know, I not acquaint My father of this business. POL. Let him know 't. FLO. He shall not. POL. Prithee, let him. FLO. No, he must not. SHEP. Let him, my son; he shall not need to grieve FLO. At knowing of thy choice. Mark our contract. Come, come, he must not: 490 [ACT IV. A WINTER'S TALE. POL. Mark your divorce, young sir, Whom son I dare not call; thou art too base To be acknowledg'd: Thou a sceptre's heir, That thus affect'st a sheephook!-Thou old traitor, I am sorry, that, by hanging thee, I can But shorten thy life one week.-And thou, fresh piece Of excellent witchcraft, who, of force, must know The royal food thou cop'st with ;- SHEP. O, my heart! POL. I'll have thy beauty scratch'd with briars, and made More homely than thy state.-For thee, fond boy, If I may ever know thou dost but sigh a [Discovering himself. That thou no more shalt never see this knack, (as never I mean thou shalt,) we 'll bar thee from succession; Not hold thee of our blood, no, not our kin, Far than Deucalion off.—Mark thou my words; Follow us to the court.-Thou churl, for this time, Though full of our displeasure, yet we free thee From the dead blow of it.—And you, enchantment, Worthy enough a herdsman; yea, him too, That makes himself, but for our honour therein, Unworthy thee,-if ever, henceforth, thou These rural latches to his entrance open, Or hoop his body more with thy embraces, I will devise a death as cruel for thee As thou art tender to 't. PER. [Exit. Even here undone ! I was not much afeard: for once, or twice, I was about to speak; and tell him plainly, The self-same sun that shines upon his court Hides not his visage from our cottage, but Looks on alike.-Will 't please you, sir, be gone? I told you what would come of this: 'Beseech you, Of your own state take care: this dream of mine, Being now awake, I'll queen it no inch farther, But milk my ewes, and weep. CAM. Speak, ere thou diest. SHEP. Why, how now, father! I cannot speak, nor think, Nor dare to know that which I know.—O, sir, You have undone a man of fourscore three, That thought to fill his grave in quiet; yea, To die upon the bed my father died, [TO FLORIZEL. [TO FLORIZEL. a The double negative, which is characteristic of Shakspere's time, is corrected in modern editions by the omission of never. SCENE III. 1.] 491 A WINTER'S TALE. FLO. To lie close by his honest bones: but now Some hangman must put on my shroud, and lay me Where no priest shovels in dust.-O cursed wretch! That knew'st this was the prince, and wouldst adventure To mingle faith with him.-Undone! undone! If I might die within this hour, I have liv'd To die when I desire. Why look you so upon me? I am but sorry, not afeard; delay'd, But nothing alter'd: What I was, I am : More straining on, for plucking back; not following My leash unwillingly. CAM. FLO. Gracious my lord, You know your father's temper: at this time He will allow no speech,-which, I do guess, You do not purpose to him;—and as hardly Will he endure your sight as yet, I fear: Then, till the fury of his highness settle, Come not before him. I think, Camillo? САМ. I not purpose it. Even he, my lord. PER. How often have I told you 't would be thus? FLO. CAM. How often said, my dignity would last But till 't were known? It cannot fail, but by The violation of my faith: And then Let nature crush the sides o' the earth together, And mar the seeds within! Lift up thy looks: From my succession wipe me, father! I Am heir to my affection. Be advised. FLO. I am; and by my fancy a: if my reason Will thereto be obedient, I have reason; If not, my senses, better pleas'd with madness, Do bid it welcome. CAM. This is desperate, sir. FLO. So call it: but it does fulfil my vow; I needs must think it honesty. Camillo, Not for Bohemia, nor the pomp that may Be thereat glean'd; for all the sun sees, or The close earth wombs, or the profound seas hide In unknown fathoms, will I break my oath [TO PERDITA. [Exit. COMEDIES.-VOL. II. a Fancy-love. L L 492 [ACT IV. A WINTER'S TALE. To this my fair belov'd: Therefore, I pray you, As you have ever been my father's honour'd friend, When he shall miss me, (as, in faith, I mean not To see him any more,) cast your good counsels Upon his passion: Let myself and fortune Tug for the time to come. This you may know, And so deliver,—I am put to sea With her, whom here I cannot hold on shore; And, most opportune to her a need, I have A vessel rides fast by, but not prepar'd For this design. What course I mean to hold Shall nothing benefit your knowledge, nor Concern me the reporting. CAM. FLO. O, my lord, I would your spirit were easier for advice, Or stronger for your need. CAM. FLO. I'll hear you by and by. Hark, Perdita. [Takes her aside. [TO CAMILLO. He's irremoveable, Resolv'd for flight: now were I happy, if His going I could frame to serve my turn; Save him from danger, do him love and honour; Purchase the sight again of dear Sicilia,. And that unhappy king, my master, whom I so much thirst to see. Now, good Camillo, I am so fraught with curious business, that I leave out ceremony. CAM. FLO. Sir, I think, You have heard of my poor services, i' the love That I have borne your father? Very nobly Have you deserv'd it is my father's music, To speak your deeds; not little of his care To have them recompens'd as thought on. CAM. Well, my lord, If you may please to think I love the king, And, through him, what is nearest to him, which is Your gracious self, embrace but my direction, (If your more ponderous and settled project May suffer alteration,) on mine honour I'll point you where you shall have such receiving As shall become your highness; where you may a Her. So the original, but usually our. Her need is the need we have of her. [Going. SCENE III.] 493 A WINTER'S TALE. FLO. Enjoy your mistress; (from the whom, I see, There's no disjunction to be made, but by, As heavens forfend! your ruin :) marry her; And (with my best endeavours, in your absence) Your discontenting father strive to qualify, And bring him up to liking. How, Camillo, May this, almost a miracle, be done? That I may call thee something more than man, And, after that, trust to thee. CAM. FLO. A place, whereto you'll go? Have you thought on Not any yet: But as the unthought-on accident is guilty To what we wildly do, so we profess Ourselves to be the slaves of chance, and flies Of every wind that blows. CAM. FLO. Then list to me: This follows,-if you will not change your purpose, But undergo this flight,-make for Sicilia; And there present yourself, and your fair princess, (For so, I see, she must be,) 'fore Leontes; She shall be habited as it becomes a The partner of your bed. Methinks, I see Leontes, opening his free arms, and weeping His welcomes forth: asks thee, the son, forgiveness, As 't were i' the father's person: kisses the hands Of your fresh princess: o'er and o'er divides him "Twixt his unkindness and his kindness; the one He chides to hell, and bids the other grow Faster than thought or time. Worthy Camillo, What colour for my visitation shall I САМ. Hold up before him? Sent by the king your father To greet him, and to give him comforts. Sir, The manner of your bearing towards him, with What you, as from your father, shall deliver, Things known betwixt us three, I'll write you down: The which shall point you forth at every sitting What you must say; that he shall not perceive, But that you have your father's bosom there, And speak his very heart. a The. In the original, there. LL 2 494 [ACT 1V. A WINTER'S TALE. FLO. I am bound to you: There is some sap in this. CAM. A course more promising Than a wild dedication of yourselves To unpath'd waters, undream'd shores; most certain, To miseries enough: no hope to help you: But, as you shake off one, to take another: Nothing so certain as your anchors; who Do their best office, if they can but stay you Where you'll be loth to be: Besides, you know, Prosperity 's the very bond of love; Whose fresh complexion and whose heart together Affliction alters. Per. CAM. FLO. One of these is true: I think affliction may subdue the cheek, But not take in the mind. Yea, say you so? There shall not, at your father's house, these seven years, Be born another such. My good Camillo, She is as forward of her breeding, as She is i' the rear of our birth a. CAM. PER. FLO. I cannot say, 't is pity She lacks instructions; for she seems a mistress To most that teach. Your pardon, sir, for this: My prettiest Perdita!- I'll blush you thanks. But, O, the thorns we stand upon !-Camillo,— Preserver of my father, now of me; The medicine of our house!-how shall we do? We are not furnish'd like Bohemia's son; Nor shall appear in Sicilia. CAM. My lord, Fear none of this: I think you know my fortunes Do all lie there: it shall be so my care To have you royally appointed, as if The scene you play were mine. For instance, sir, That you may know you shall not want,-one word. Enter AUTOLYCUS. [They talk aside. AUT. Ha, ha! what a fool honesty is! and trust, his sworn brother, a very sim- ple gentleman! I have sold all my trumpery; not a counterfeit stone, not a a The original reads- "She is i' th' reere 'our birth." SCENE III.] 495 A WINTER'S TALE. riband, glass, pomander 17, brooch, table-book, ballad, knife, tape, glove, shoe- tie, bracelet, horn-ring, to keep my pack from fasting; they throng who should buy first, as if my trinkets had been hallowed, and brought a benediction to the buyer: by which means I saw whose purse was best in picture; and what I saw, to my good use I remembered. My clown (who wants but something to be a reasonable man) grew so in love with the wenches' song, that he would not stir his pettitoes till he had both tune and words; which so drew the rest of the herd to me, that all their other senses stuck in ears: you might have pinched a placket, it was senseless; 't was nothing to geld a cod- piece of a purse; I would have filed keys off that hung in chains: no hear- ing, no feeling, but my sir's song, and admiring the nothing of it. So that, in this time of lethargy, I picked and cut most of their festival purses: and had not the old man come in with a whoobub against his daughter and the king's son, and scared my choughs from the chaff, I had not left a purse alive in the whole army. [CAM., FLO., and PER. come forward. CAM. Nay, but my letters by this means being there So soon as you arrive, shall clear that doubt. FLO. And those that you 'll procure from king Leontes- CAM. Shall satisfy your father. PER. All that you speak shows fair. CAM. Happy be you! Who have we here?- [Seeing AUTOLYCUS. [Aside. We'll make an instrument of this; omit Nothing may give us aid. AUT. If they have overheard me now, why, hanging. CAM. How now, good fellow? why shakest thou so? Fear not, man; here's no harm intended to thee. AUT. I am a poor fellow, sir. CAM. Why, be so still; here's nobody will steal that from thee: Yet, for the outside of thy poverty we must make an exchange: therefore, discase thee instantly, (thou must think there's a necessity in 't) and change garments with this gentleman: Though the pennyworth, on his side, be the worst, yet hold thee, there's some boot. AUT. I am a poor fellow, sir:-I know ye well enough. CAM. Nay, prithee, despatch: the gentleman is half flay'd already. AUT. Are you in earnest, sir?-I smell the trick on 't.- [Aside. [Aside. FLO. Despatch, I prithee. AUT. Indeed, I have had earnest; but I cannot with conscience take it. CAM. Unbuckle, unbuckle.- [FLO. and AUTOL. exchange garments. Fortunate mistress,-let my prophecy Come home to you!-you must retire yourself Into some covert: take your sweetheart's hat, And pluck it o'er your brows; muffle your face; Dismantle you; and, as you can, disliken The truth of your own seeming; that you may 496 [ACT IV. A WINTER'S TALE. (For I do fear eyes over you a) to shipboard Get undescried. PER. I see the play so lies That I must bear a part. CAM. No remedy.- Have you done there? FLO. Should I now meet my father, He would not call me son. CAM. Nay, you shall have no hat : Come, lady, come.-Farewell, my friend. AUT. FLO. O Perdita, what have we twain forgot! Pray you, a word. Adieu, sir. [They converse apart. [Aside. CAM. What I do next shall be, to tell the king Of this escape, and whither they are bound; Wherein, my hope is, I shall so prevail To force him after; in whose company I shall review Sicilia; for whose sight I have a woman's longing. FLO. Fortune speed us !— Thus we set on, Camillo, to the sea-side. CAM. The swifter speed the better. [Exeunt FLO., PER., and CAM. AUT. I understand the business, I hear it: To have an open ear, a quick eye, and a nimble hand, is necessary for a cutpurse; a good nose is requisite also, to smell out work for the other senses. I see this is the time that the un- just man doth thrive. What an exchange had this been, without boot! what a boot is here, with this exchange! Sure, the gods do this year connive at us, and we may do anything extempore. The prince himself is about a piece of iniquity; stealing away from his father, with his clog at his heels: If I thought it were a piece of honesty to acquaint the king withal, I would not do 't: I hold it the more knavery to conceal it: and therein am I constant to my profession. Enter Clown and Shepherd. Aside, aside;—here is more matter for a hot brain: Every lane's end, every shop, church, session, hanging, yields a careful man work. CLO. See, see; what a man you are now! there is no other way but to tell the king she's a changeling, and none of your flesh and blood. SHEP. Nay, but hear me. CLO. Nay, but hear me. SHEP. Go to then. CLO. She being none of your flesh and blood, your flesh and blood has not offended the king; and, so, your flesh and blood is not to be punished by him. Show those things you found about her; those secret things, all but a You, which was wanting in the original, was added by Rowe. SCENE III.] 497 A WINTER'S TALE. what she has with her: This being done, let the law go whistle; I warrant you. SHEP. I will tell the king all, every word; yea, and his son's pranks too; who, I may say, is no honest man neither to his father, nor to me, to go about to make me the king's brother-in-law. CLO. Indeed, brother-in-law was the farthest off you could have been to him; and then your blood had been the dearer, by I know how much an ounce. AUT. Very wisely; puppies! [Aside. SHEP. Well; let us to the king; there is that in this fardel will make him scratch his beard. AUT. I know not what impediment this complaint may be to the flight of my master. CLO. 'Pray heartily he be at palace. AUT. Though I am not naturally honest, I am so sometimes by chance:-Let me pocket up my pedlar's excrement.-[Takes off his false beard.] How now, rustics? whither are you bound? SHEP. To the palace, an it like your worship. AUT. Your affairs there; what; with whom; the condition of that fardel; the place of your dwelling; your names; your ages; of what having, breeding; and anything that is fitting to be known, discover. CLO. We are but plain fellows, sir. AUT. A lie; you are rough and hairy: Let me have no lying; it becomes none but tradesmen, and they often give us soldiers the lie: but we pay them for it with stamped coin, not stabbing steel; therefore they do not give us the liec. CLO. Your worship had like to have given us one, if you had not taken yourself with the mannerd. SHEP. Are you a courtier, an 't like you, sir? AUT. Whether it like me, or no, I am a courtier. See'st thou not the air of the court in these enfoldings? hath not my gait in it the measure of the court? receives not thy nose court-odour from me? reflect I not on thy baseness, court-contempt? Think'st thou, for that I insinuate, or toze from thee thy business, I am therefore no courtier? I am courtier cap-a-pè; and one that will either push on or pluck back thy business there: whereupon I command thee to open thy affair. SHEP. My business, sir, is to the king. AUT. What advocate hast thou to him? SHEP. I know not, an 't like you. CLO. Advocate's the court-word for a pheasant; say, you have none. SHEP. None, sir; I have no pheasant, cock nor hen. AUT. How bless'd are we that are not simple men! a Excrement-his beard. So Armado terms it. Having-estate. с As they are paid for lying, they do not give us the lie. d With the manner—in the fact. 498 [ACT IV. A WINTER'S TALE. Yet nature might have made me as these are, Therefore I'll not disdain. CLO. This cannot be but a great courtier. SHEP. His garments are rich, but he wears them not handsomely. CLO. He seems to be the more noble in being fantastical: a great man, I 'll warrant; I know by the picking on 's teeth. AUT. The fardel there? what's i' the fardel? Wherefore that box? SHEP. Sir, there lies such secrets in this fardel and box, which none must know but the king; and which he shall know within this hour, if I may come to the speech of him. AUT. Age, thou hast lost thy labour. SHEP. Why, sir? Aur. The king is not at the palace: he is gone aboard a new ship to purge melancholy, and air himself: For if thou be'st capable of things serious, thou must know the king is full of grief. SHEP. So 't is said, sir, about his son, that should have married a shepherd's daughter. AUT. If that shepherd be not in hand-fast, let him fly; the curses he shall have, the tortures he shall feel, will break the back of man, the heart of monster. CLO. Think you so, sir? AUT. Not he alone shall suffer what wit can make heavy, and vengeance bitter; but those that are germane to him, though removed fifty times, shall all come under the hangman: which though it be great pity, yet it is necessary. An old sheep-whistling rogue, a ram-tender, to offer to have his daughter come into grace! Some say, he shall be stoned; but that death is too soft for him, say I: Draw our throne into a sheep-cote! all deaths are too few, the sharpest too easy. CLO. Has the old man e'er a son, sir, do you hear, an 't like you, sir? AUT. He has a son, who shall be flayed alive; then, 'nointed over with honey, set on the head of a wasp's nest; then stand, till he be three quarters and a dram dead; then recovered again with aqua-vitæ, or some other hot infu- sion; then, raw as he is, and in the hottest day prognostication proclaims, shall he be set against a brick wall, the sun looking with a southward eye upon him, where he is to behold him with flies blown to death. But what talk we of these traitorly rascals, whose miseries are to be smiled at, their offences being so capital? Tell me (for you seem to be honest plain men) what you have to the king: being something gently considered, I'll bring you where he is aboard, tender your persons to his presence, whisper him in your behalfs; and, if it be in man, besides the king, to effect your suits, here is man shall do it. CLO. He seems to be of great authority: close with him, give him gold; and though authority be a stubborn bear, yet he is oft led by the nose with gold: show the inside of your purse to the outside of his hand, and no more ado: Remember, stoned and flayed alive! SCENE III.] 499 A WINTER'S TALE. SHEP. An 't please you, sir, to undertake the business for us, here is that gold I have: I'll make it as much more; and leave this young man in pawn till I bring it you. AUT. After I have done what I promised? SHEP. Ay, sir. AUT. Well, give me the moiety:-Are you a party in this business? CLO. In some sort, sir: but though my case be a pitiful one, I hope I shall not be flayed out of it. AUT. O, that's the case of the shepherd's son :-Hang him, he 'll be made an example. CLO. Comfort, good comfort: we must to the king, and show our strange sights: he must know, 't is none of your daughter, nor my sister; we are gone else. Sir, I will give you as much as this old man does, when the business is per- formed; and remain, as he says, your pawn, till it be brought you. AUT. I will trust you. Walk before toward the sea-side; go on the right hand; I will but look upon the hedge, and follow you. CLO. We are blessed in this man, as I may say, even blessed. SHEP. Let's before, as he bids us: he was provided to do us good. [Exeunt Shepherd and Clown. AUT. If I had a mind to be honest, I see fortune would not suffer me; she drops booties in my mouth. I am courted now with a double occasion; gold, and a means to do the prince my master good; which, who knows how that may turn back to my advancement? I will bring these two moles, these blind ones, aboard him: if he think it fit to shore them again, and that the complaint they have to the king concerns him nothing, let him call me rogue for being so far officious; for I am proof against that title, and what shame else belongs to 't: To him will I present them; there may be matter in it. [Exit. 2 [SCENE III. "O, thus she stood, Even with such life of majesty."] ACT V. SCENE I.—Sicilia. A Room in the Palace of Leontes. Enter LEONTES, CLEOMENES, DION, PAULINA, and others. CLEO. Sir, you have done enough, and have perform'd A saint-like sorrow: no fault could you make Which you have not redeem'd; indeed, paid down More penitence, than done trespass: At the last Do, as the heavens have done; forget your evil; With them, forgive yourself. LEON. Whilst I remember SCENE I.] 501 A WINTER'S TALE. Her, and her virtues, I cannot forget My blemishes in them; and so still think of The wrong I did myself: which was so much, That heirless it hath made my kingdom; and Destroy'd the sweet'st companion that e'er man Bred his hopes out of. PAUL. True, too true, my lord: If, one by one, you wedded all the world, Or, from the all that are took something good, To make a perfect woman, she, you kill'd, Would be unparallel'd. LEON. I think so. Kill'd! She I kill'd! I did so: but thou strik'st me Sorely, to say I did; it is as bitter Upon thy tongue as in my thought. Now, good now, Say so but seldom. CLEO. Not at all, good lady; You might have spoken a thousand things that would Have done the time more benefit, and grac'd Your kindness better. PAUL. You are one of those Would have him wed again. DION. If you would not so, You pity not the state, nor the remembrance Of his most sovereign name; consider little, What dangers, by his highness' fail of issue, May drop upon his kingdom, and devour Incertain lookers-on. What were more holy Than to rejoice the former queen is well a? What holier than,-for royalty's repair, For present comfort and for future good,- To bless the bed of majesty again With a sweet fellow to 't? PAUL. There is none worthy, Respecting her that's gone. Besides, the gods Will have fulfill'd their secret purposes: For has not the divine Apollo said, Is 't not the tenor of his oracle, That king Leontes shall not have an heir Till his lost child be found? which, that it shall, Is all as monstrous to our human reason, As my Antigonus to break his grave, And come again to me; who, on my life, a In 'Antony and Cleopatra' we have an explanation of the text:- "We use to say, the dead are well.” 502 [ACT V. A WINTER'S TALE. Did perish with the infant. "T is your counsel My lord should to the heavens be contrary, Oppose against their wills.-Care not for issue; The crown will find an heir: Great Alexander Left his to the worthiest; so his successor Was like to be the best. LEON. Good Paulina,- Who hast the memory of Hermione, I know, in honour,-O, that ever I Had squar'd me to thy counsel! then, even now, I might have look'd upon my queen's full eyes; Have taken treasure from her lips, PAUL. More rich, for what they yielded. LEON. And left them Thou speak'st truth. No more such wives; therefore, no wife: one worse, And better us'd, would make her sainted spirit Again possess her corpse; and, on this stage, (Where we offenders now,) appear ", soul-vex'd, And begin, "Why to me?" PAUL. She had just cause b. LEON. Had she such power, She had; and would incense me To murther her I married. PAUL. I should so: Were I the ghost that walk'd, I'd bid you mark Her eye; and tell me, for what dull part in 't You chose her: then I'd shriek, that even your ears Should rift to hear me; and the words that follow'd Should be, Remember mine!" LEON. Stars, stars, And all eyes else dead coals!-fear thou no wife, [TO LEONTES. a The original reads- (Where we offenders now appear.) แ We have shifted the place of the parenthesis, making "her sainted spirit" the nominative case to appear." By this arrangement, "where we offenders now are must be understood. By any other construction we lose the force of the word "appear," as applied to "sainted spirit." Malone proposed to read,— (l Again possess her corpse, (and on this stage Where we offenders now appear soul-vex'd,) And begin, Why to me? Steevens, whom Mr. Collier follows, reads ↳ Just cause. "(Where we offenders now appear) soul-vex'd, Begin' And why to me."" In the original just such cause. In modern editions such is omitted, following the authority of the third folio. с Stars, stars. So the original, but diluted by Hanmer into stars, very stars. SCENE I.] 503 A WINTER'S TALE. I'll have no wife, Paulina. PAUL. Will you swear Never to marry, but by my free leave? LEON. Never, Paulina: so be bless'd my spirit! PAUL. Then, good my lords, bear witness to his oath,— CLEO. You tempt him over-much. PAUL. Unless another, As like Hermione as is her picture, Affront his eye a;— CLEO. Good madam, I have done. PAUL. Yet, if my lord will marry,—if you will, No remedy but you will; give me the office To choose you a queen; she shall not be so young As was your former; but she shall be such As, walk'd your first queen's ghost, it should take joy To see her in your arms. LEON. My true Paulina, We shall not marry till thou bidd'st us. PAUL. That Shall be, when your first queen 's again in breath ; Never till then. Enter a Gentleman. GENT. One that gives out himself prince Florizel, Son of Polixenes, with his princess, (she The fairest I have yet beheld,) desires access To your high presence. LEON. What with him? he comes not Like to his father's greatness: his approach, So out of circumstance and sudden, tells us "T is not a visitation fram'd, but forc'd By need and accident. What train? GENT. And those but mean. LEON. But few, His princess, say you, with him? GENT. Ay, the most peerless piece of earth, I think, That e'er the sun shone bright on. O Hermione, PAUL. As every present time doth boast itself Above a better, gone, so must thy grave Give way to what 's seen now. Sir, you yourself Have said, and writ so, (but your writing now a The vehemence of Paulina overbears the interruption of Cleomenes, and he says "I have done." The modern editors give "I have done" to Paulina; when she is evidently going on, perfectly regardless of any opposition. 504 [ACT V. A WINTER'S TALE. Is colder than that theme,) "She had not been, Nor was not to be equall'd;"-thus your verse Flow'd with her beauty once; 't is shrewdly ebb'd, To say you have seen a better. GENT. Pardon, madam; The one I have almost forgot; (your pardon,) The other, when she has obtain'd your eye, Will have your tongue too. This is a creature Would she begin a sect, might quench the zeal Of all professors else; make proselytes Of who she but bid follow. PAUL. How? not women? GENT. Women will love her, that she is a woman, More worth than any man; men, that she is The rarest of all women. LEON. Go, Cleomenes; Yourself, assisted with your honour'd friends, Bring them to our embracement.-Still 't is strange, He thus should steal upon us. [Exeunt CLEOMENES, Lords, and Gentleman. PAUL. Had our prince (Jewel of children) seen this hour, he had pair'd Well with this lord; there was not full a month Between their births. LEON. Prithee, no more; cease; thou know'st, He dies to me again, when talk'd of: sure, When I shall see this gentleman, thy speeches Will bring me to consider that which may Unfurnish me of reason.-They are come.— Re-enter CLEOMENES, with FLORIZEL, PERDITA, and Attendants. Your mother was most true to wedlock, prince; For she did print your royal father off, Conceiving you: Were I but twenty-one, Your father's image is so hit in you, His very air, that I should call you brother, As I did him; and speak of something, wildly By us perform❜d before. Most dearly welcome! And your fair princess, goddess !-O, alas ! I lost a couple, that 'twixt heaven and earth Might thus have stood, begetting wonder, as You, gracious couple, do! and then I lost (All mine own folly) the society, Amity too, of your brave father; whom, SCENE 1.] 505 A WINTER'S TALE. FLO. Though bearing misery, I desire my life Once more to look on him. By his command Have I here touch'd Sicilia: and from him Give you all greetings, that a king, at friend, Can send his brother: and, but infirmity (Which waits upon worn times) hath something seiz'd His wish'd ability, he had himself The lands and waters 'twixt your throne and his Measur'd to look upon you; whom he loves (He bade me say so) more than all the sceptres, And those that bear them, living. LEON. O, my brother, (Good gentleman!) the wrongs I have done thee stir Afresh within me; and these thy offices, FLO. So rarely kind, are as interpreters Of my behind-hand slackness !-Welcome hither, As is the spring to the earth. And hath he too Expos'd this paragon to the fearful usage (At least, ungentle) of the dreadful Neptune, To greet a man not worth her pains; much less The adventure of her person? She came from Libya. LEON. Good my lord, Where the warlike Smalus, That noble honour'd lord, is fear'd and lov'd? FLO. Most royal sir, from thence; from him, whose daughter His tears proclaim'd his, parting with her: thence (A prosperous south-wind friendly) we have cross'd, To execute the charge my father gave me, For visiting your highness: My best train I have from your Sicilian shores dismiss'd; Who for Bohemia bend, to signify Not only my success in Libya, sir, But my arrival, and my wife's, in safety Here, where we are. LEON. The blessed gods Purge all infection from our air, whilst you Do climate here! You have a holy father, A graceful gentleman; against whose person, So sacred as it is, I have done sin: For which the heavens, taking angry note, Have left me issueless; and your father's bless'd (As he from heaven merits it) with you, Worthy his goodness. What might I have been, 506 [ACT V. A WINTER'S TALE. Might I a son and daughter now have look'd on, Such goodly things as you! LORD. Enter a Lord. Most noble sir, That which I shall report will bear no credit, Were not the proof so nigh. Please you, great sir, Bohemia greets you from himself by me : Desires you to attach his son; who has (His dignity and duty both cast off) Fled from his father, from his hopes, and with A shepherd's daughter. LEON. Where's Bohemia? speak. LORD. Here in your a city; I now came from him: I speak amazedly; and it becomes My marvel, and my message. To your court Whiles he was hast'ning, (in the chase, it seems, Of this fair couple,) meets he on the way The father of this seeming lady, and Her brother, having both their country quitted With this young prince. FLO. Camillo has betray'd me; Whose honour, and whose honesty, till now, Endur'd all weathers. LORD. Lay 't so to his charge; Who? Camillo ? He's with the king your father. LEON. LORD. Camillo, sir; I spake with him; who now PER. Has these poor men in question. Never saw I Wretches so quake: they kneel, they kiss the earth; Forswear themselves as often as they speak: Bohemia stops his ears, and threatens them With divers deaths in death. O, my poor father !— The heaven sets spies upon us, will not have Our contract celebrated. LEON. You are married? FLO. We are not, sir, nor are we like to be; The stars, I see, will kiss the valleys first:— The odds for high and low 's alike. LEON. FLO. Is this the daughter of a king? When once she is my wife. My lord, She is, a Your. This is changed to the, in modern editions, without explanation. SCENE II.] 507 A WINTER'S TALE. LEON. That once, I see, by your good father's speed, Will come on very slowly. I am sorry, Most sorry, you have broken from his liking, Where you were tied in duty: and as sorry, Your choice is not so rich in worth as beauty, That you might well enjoy her. FLO. Dear, look up: Though fortune, visible an enemy, Should chase us, with my father, power no jot Hath she to change our loves.-'Beseech you, sir, Remember since you ow'd no more to time Than I do now: with thought of such affections, Step forth mine advocate; at your request, My father will grant precious things as trifles. LEON. Would he do so, I'd beg your precious mistress, Which he counts but a trifle. PAUL. Sir, my liege, Your eye hath too much youth in 't: not a month 'Fore your queen died, she was more worth such gazes Than what you look on now. LEON. I thought of her, Even in these looks I made.-But your petition Is yet unanswer'd: I will to your father; Your honour not o'erthrown by your desires, I am friend to them, and you: upon which errand I now go toward him; therefore follow me, And mark what way I make: Come, good my lord. [TO FLORIZEL. [Exeunt. SCENE II.—The same. Before the Palace. Enter AUTOLYCUS and a Gentleman. AUT. 'Beseech you, sir, were you present at this relation ? 1 GENT. I was by at the opening of the fardel; heard the old shepherd deliver the manner how he found it: whereupon, after a little amazedness, we were all commanded out of the chamber; only this, methought I heard the shepherd say, he found the child. AUT. I would most gladly know the issue of it. 1 GENT. I make a broken delivery of the business:-But the changes I perceived in the king and Camillo were very notes of admiration: they seemed almost, with staring on one another, to tear the cases of their eyes; there was speech in their dumbness, language in their very gesture; they looked as they had heard of a world ransomed, or one destroyed: A notable passion of wonder appeared in them: but the wisest beholder, COMEDIES.-VOL. II. M M 508 [ACT V. A WINTER'S TALE. that knew no more but seeing, could not say if the importance were joy or sorrow; but in the extremity of the one it must needs be. Enter another Gentleman. a Here comes a gentleman, that, happily, knows more: The news, Rogero? 2 GENT. Nothing but bonfires: The oracle is fulfilled; the king's daughter is found: such a deal of wonder is broken out within this hour, that ballad- makers cannot be able to express it. Enter a third Gentleman. Here comes the lady Paulina's steward; he can deliver you more.-How goes it now, sir? this news, which is called true, is so like an old tale, that the verity of it is in strong suspicion: Has the king found his heir? 3 GENT. Most true; if ever truth were pregnant by circumstance; that which you hear you 'll swear you see, there is such unity in the proofs. The mantle of queen Hermione:-her jewel about the neck of it :-the letters of Antigonus, found with it, which they know to be his character:-the majesty of the creature, in resemblance of the mother;-the affection of nobleness, which nature shows above her breeding, and many other evidences, proclaim her, with all certainty, to be the king's daughter. you see the meeting of the two kings? 2 GENT. No. Did 3 GENT. Then have you lost a sight, which was to be seen, cannot be spoken of. There might you have beheld one joy crown another; so, and in such manner, that it seemed sorrow wept to take leave of them; for their joy waded in tears. There was casting up of eyes, holding up of hands; with countenance of such distraction, that they were to be known by garment, not by favour. Our king, being ready to leap out of himself for joy of his found daughter; as if that joy were now become a loss, cries, “O, thy mother, thy mother!" then asks Bohemia forgiveness; then embraces his son-in-law; then again worries he his daughter, with clipping her; now he thanks the old shepherd, which stands by, like a weather-bitten conduit 18 of many kings' reigns. I never heard of such another encounter, which lames report to follow it, and undoes description to do it. 2 GENT. What, pray you, became of Antigonus, that carried hence the child? 3 GENT. Like an old tale still; which will have matter to rehearse, though credit be asleep, and not an ear open: He was torn to pieces with a bear: this avouches the shepherd's son; who has not only his innocence (which seems much) to justify him, but a handkerchief, and rings, of his, that Pau- lina knows. 1 GENT. What became of his bark, and his followers? 3 GENT. Wracked, the same instant of their master's death; and in the view of the shepherd: so that all the instruments, which aided to expose the child, were even then lost, when it was found. But, O, the noble combat a Importance-import. SCENE II.] 509 A WINTER'S TALE. that, 'twixt joy and sorrow, was fought in Paulina! She had one eye de- clined for the loss of her husband; another elevated that the oracle was fulfilled: She lifted the princess from the earth; and so locks her in em- bracing, as if she would pin her to her heart, that she might no more be in danger of losing. 1 GENT. The dignity of this act was worth the audience of kings and princes; for by such was it acted. 3 GENT. One of the prettiest touches of all, and that which angled for mine eyes (caught the water, though not the fish), was, when at the relation of the queen's death, with the manner how she came to it, (bravely confessed, and lamented by the king,) how attentiveness wounded his daughter; till, from one sign of dolour to another, she did, with an alas!" I would fain say, bleed tears; for, I am sure, my heart wept blood. marble there changed colour; some swooned, all sorrowed: could have seen it, the woe had been universal. 1 GENT. Are they returned to the court? Who was most if all the world 3 GENT. No: the princess hearing of her mother's statue, which is in the keep- ing of Paulina,-a piece many years in doing, and now newly performed by that rare Italian master, Julio Romano; who, had he himself eternity, and could put breath into his work, would beguile nature of her custom, so perfectly he is her ape: he so near to Hermione hath done Hermione, that they say, one would speak to her, and stand in hope of answer: thither, with all greediness of affection, are they gone; and there they intend to sup. 2 GENT. I thought she had some great matter there in hand; for she hath privately, twice or thrice a day, ever since the death of Hermione, visited that removed house. Shall we thither, and with our company piece the rejoicing? 1 GENT. Who whould be thence that has the benefit of access? every wink of an eye, some new grace will be born: our absence makes us unthrifty to our knowledge. Let's along. [Exeunt Gentlemen. AUT. Now, had I not the dash of my former life in me, would preferment drop on my head. I brought the old man and his son aboard the prince; told him, I heard them talk of a fardel, and I know not what; but he at that time, overfond of the shepherd's daughter, (so he then took her to be,) who began to be much sea-sick, and himself little better, extremity of weather continuing, this mystery remained undiscovered. But 't is all one to me; for had I been the finder out of this secret, it would not have relished among my other discredits. Enter Shepherd and Clown. Here come those I have done good to against my will, and already appear- ing in the blossoms of their fortune. SHEP. Come, boy; I am past more children, but thy sons and daughters will be all gentlemen born. CLO. You are well met, sir: You denied to fight with me this other day, because M M 2 510 [ACT V. A WINTER'S TALE. I was no gentleman born: See you these clothes? say, you see them not, and think me still no gentleman born: you were best say these robes are not gentlemen born. Give me the lie; do; and try whether I am not now a gentleman born. AUT. I know you are now, sir, a gentleman born. CLO. Ay, and have been so any time these four hours. SHEP. And so have I, boy. CLO. So you have:—but I was a gentleman born before my father: for the king's son took me by the hand, and called me, brother; and then the two kings called my father, brother; and then the prince, my brother, and the princess, my sister, called my father, father; and so we wept: and there was the first gentlemanlike tears that ever we shed. SHEP. We may live, son, to shed many more. CLO. Ay; or else 't were hard luck; being in so preposterous estate as we are. AUT. I humbly beseech you, sir, to pardon me all the faults I have committed to your worship, and to give me your good report to the prince my master. SHEP. Prithee, son, do; for we must be gentle, now we are gentlemen. CLO. Thou wilt amend thy life? AUT. Ay, an it like your good worship. CLO. Give me thy hand: I will swear to the prince, thou art as honest a true fellow as any is in Bohemia. SHEP. You may say it, but not swear it. CLO. Not swear it, now I am a gentleman? Let boors and franklins say it, I'll swear it. SHEP. How if it be false, son? CLO. If it be ne'er so false, a true gentleman may swear it, in the behalf of his friend :—And I'll swear to the prince, thou art a tall fellow of thy hands, and that thou wilt not be drunk; but I know, thou art no tall fellow of thy hands, and that thou wilt be drunk; but I'll swear it: and I would thou wouldst be a tall fellow of thy hands. AUT. I will proye so, sir, to my power. CLO. Ay, by any means prove a tall fellow: If I do not wonder how thou darest venture to be drunk, not being a tall fellow, trust me not.-Hark! the kings and the princes, our kindred, are going to see the queen's picture. Come, follow us: we'll be thy good masters. SCENE III.-The same. A Room in Paulina's House. [Exeunt. Enter LEONTES, POLIXENES, FLORIZEL, PERDITA, CAMILLO, PAULINA, Lords, and Attendants. LEON. O grave and good Paulina, the great comfort That I have had of thee! PAUL. What, sovereign sir, I did not well, I meant well: All my services SCENE III. 1.] 511 A WINTER'S TALE. You have paid home: but that you have vouchsaf'd, With your crown'd brother, and these your contracted Heirs of your kingdoms, my poor house to visit ; It is a surplus of your grace, which never My life may last to answer. LEON. O, Paulina, We honour you with trouble: But we came To see the statue of our queen: your gallery Have we pass'd through, not without much content In many singularities; but we saw not That which my daughter came to look upon, The statue of her mother. PAUL. As she liv'd peerless, So her dead likeness, I do well believe, Excels whatever yet you look'd upon, Or hand of man hath done; therefore I keep it Lonely, apart: But here it is: prepare To see the life as lively mock'd, as ever Still sleep mock'd death: behold; and say, 't is well. [PAULINA undraws a curtain, and discovers a statue. I like your silence, it the more shows off Your wonder: But yet speak ;-first, you, my liege. Comes it not something near? LEON. POL. Her natural posture !— Chide me, dear stone; that I may say, indeed, Thou art Hermione: or, rather, thou art she, In thy not chiding; for she was as tender As infancy, and grace.—But yet, Paulina, Hermione was not so much wrinkled; nothing So aged, as this seems. O, not by much. PAUL. So much the more our carver's excellence; Which lets go by some sixteen years, and makes her As she liv'd now. LEON. As now she might have done, So much to my good comfort, as it is Now piercing to my soul. O, thus she stood, Even with such life of majesty, (warm life, As now it coldly stands,) when first I woo'd her! I am asham'd: Does not the stone rebuke me, For being more stone than it?—O, royal piece, There's magic in thy majesty, which has My evils conjur'd to remembrance; and From thy admiring daughter took the spirits, Standing like stone with thee! 512 [ACT Y. A WINTER'S TALE. PER. And give me leave; And do not say t' is superstition, that I kneel, and then implore her blessing.—Lady, Dear queen, that ended when I but began, Give me that hand of yours to kiss. PAUL. O, patience : The statue is but newly fix'd, the colour 's Not dry. CAM. My lord, your sorrow was too sore laid on ; Which sixteen winters cannot blow away, POL. So many summers dry: scarce any joy Did ever so long live; no sorrow, But kill'd itself much sooner. Dear my brother, Let him that was the cause of this have power To take off so much grief from you, as he Will piece up in himself. PAUL. Indeed, my lord, If I had thought the sight of my poor image Would thus have wrought you (for the stone is mine), I'd not have show'd it. LEON. Do not draw the curtain. PAUL. No longer shall you gaze on 't; lest your fancy May think anon it moves. LEON. POL. Let be, let be. a Would I were dead, but that, methinks, already What was he that did make it ?-See, my lord, Would you not deem it breath'd? and that those veins Did verily bear blood? Masterly done: The very life seems warm upon her lip. LEON. The fixure of her eye has motion in 't, As we are mock'd with art. PAUL. I'll draw the curtain ; My lord's almost so far transported that He'll think anon it lives. LEON. O, sweet Paulina, Make me to think so twenty years together; No settled senses of the world can match The pleasure of that madness. Let 't alone. a Tieck understands this—“ Would I were dead,” if that could reanimate Hermione—“ but that -methinks-already"—the sculptor has done it-made her breathe-given her motion-" what was he that did make it?" It is scarcely necessary to conjecture how Leontes would have closed the sentence: for the abrupt breaking off is one of those touches of nature with which Shakspere knew how to give passion an eloquence beyond words. SCENE III.] 513 A WINTER'S TALE. PAUL. I am sorry, sir, I have thus far stirr'd you: but I could afflict you further. LEON. Do, Paulina; For this affliction has a taste as sweet As any cordial comfort.—Still, methinks, There is an air comes from her: What fine chisel Could ever yet cut breath? Let no man mock me, For I will kiss her. PAUL. Good my lord, forbear: The ruddiness upon her lip is wet 19; You'll mar it, if you kiss it; stain your own With oily painting: Shall I draw the curtain? LEON. No, not these twenty years. PER. Stand by, a looker-on. PAUL. So long could I Either forbear, Quit presently the chapel; or resolve you For more amazement. If you can behold it, I'll make the statue move indeed; descend, And take you by the hand: but then you'll think, (Which I protest against,) I am assisted By wicked powers. LEON. What you can make her do, I am content to look on: what to speak, I am content to hear; for 't is as easy To make her speak, as move. PAUL. It is requir'd You do awake your faith: Then, all stand still: Ora, those that think it is unlawful business I am about, let them depart. LEON. No foot shall stir. PAUL. Proceed; Music; awake her: strike.- "T is time; descend; be stone no more: approach; Strike all that look upon with marvel. Come; I'll fill your grave up: stir; nay, come away; Bequeath to death your numbness, for from him Dear life redeems you. You perceive she stirs ; [Music. [HERMIONE comes down from the pedestal. Start not her actions shall be holy, as, You hear, my spell is lawful: do not shun her, Until you see her die again; for then a Or. The folio has, "On: Those that think," &c. Hanmer made the change, which is supported by Mr. Dyce. 514 [ACT V. A WINTER'S TALE. You kill her double: Nay, present your hand: When she was young you woo'd her; now, in age, Is she become the suitor! LEON. POL. O, she's warm! If this be magic, let it be an art Lawful as eating. She embraces him. CAM. She hangs about his neck; If she pertain to life, let her speak too. POL. Ay, and make 't manifest where she has liv'd, Or, how stol'n from the dead! PAUL. That she is living, Were it but told you, should be hooted at Like an old tale; but it appears she lives, Though yet she speak not. Mark a little while.- Please you to interpose, fair madam; kneel, And pray your mother's blessing.-Turn, good lady; Our Perdita is found. HER. [Embracing her. [Presenting PER., who kneels to HER. You gods, look down, And from your sacred vials pour your graces Upon my daughter's head!-Tell me, mine own, Where hast thou been preserv'd? where liv'd? how found Thy father's court? for thou shalt hear, that I,— Knowing by Paulina, that the oracle Gave hope thou wast in being,-have preserv'd Myself, to see the issue. PAUL. There's time enough for that; Lest they desire, upon this push, to trouble Your joys with like relation.-Go together, You precious winners all; your exultation Partake to every one. I, an old turtle, Will wing me to some wither'd bough, and there My mate, that's never to be found again, Lament till I am lost. LEON. O peace, Paulina ; Thou shouldst a husband take by my consent, As I by thine, a wife: this is a match, And made between 's by vows. Thou hast found mine; But how, is to be question'd: for I saw her, As I thought, dead; and have, in vain, said many A prayer upon her grave; I'll not seek far (For him, I partly know his mind) to find thee An honourable husband:-Come, Camillo, And take her by the hand: whose worth, and honesty, Is richly noted; and here justified SCENE III.] 515 A WINTER'S TALE. By us, a pair of kings.-Let's from this place.- What?-Look upon my brother:-both your pardons, That e'er I put between your holy looks My ill suspicion. This your son-in-law, And son unto the king, (whom heavens directing,) Is troth-plight to your daughter.-Good Paulina, Lead us from hence; where we may leisurely Each one demand, and answer to his part Perform'd in this wide gap of time, since first We were dissever'd: Hastily lead away. : ["Now, in age, Is she become the suitor !"-Act V., Sc. 3.] BASTIA [Exeunt. “Still virginalling."] ILLUSTRATIONS. ACT I. ¹ SCENE II. “Still virginalling Upon his palm?” NARES, in his 'Glossary,' rightly explains the verb to virginal, here used, as "to play with the fingers as on a virginal;" but he adds, “ap- parently intended as a word coined in contempt or indignation.” It appears to us that Shak- spere meant simply to convey the notion of a rapid movement with the fingers; just in the same way that Cowper, describing his tame hare, says, “He would invite me to the garden by drumming upon my knee." The virginal was a sort of rectangular spinnet, with one wire to each note; and Nares suggests that the name was derived from their "being used by young girls." The idea which Shakspere has conveyed in the passage before us is elaborated in the Hundred and Twenty-eighth Sonnet :- "How oft, when thou, my music, music play'st, Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds With thy sweet fingers, when thou gently sway'st The wiry concord that mine ear confounds, Do I envy those jacks, that nimble leap To kiss the tender inward of thy hand, Whilst my poor lips, which should that harvest reap, At the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand! To be so tickled, they would change their state And situation with those dancing chips, O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait, Making dead wood more bless'd than living lips. Since saucy jacks so happy are in this, Give them thy fingers, me thy lips, to kiss." 2 SCENE II." Will you take eggs for money?” The answer of Mamillius shows that this quaint proverbial expression was familiar enough even to a boy : "No, my lord, I 'll fight.” (C The meaning is pretty evident,-Will you truckle, submit to injustice, be bullied, cheated? Reed says that Leontes seems only to ask his son if he would fly from an enemy;" and he quotes the following passage in support of his opinion :- "The French infantry skirmisheth bravely afar off, and cavalry gives a furious onset at the first charge; but after the first heat they will take eggs for their money."-('Relations of the Most Famous Kingdoms,' &c., 1630.) This, it appears to us, is a special application of a gene- ral meaning. It was part of the defence of the Earl of Kildare, in answer to Wolsey's charge SCENE II.] 517 A WINTER'S TALE. against him that he had not been sufficiently | ferior servants, or retainers; those who sat active to take the rebellious Earl of Desmond, that "my good brother of Ossory, notwith- standing his high promises, having also the king's power, is glad to take eggs for his money, and bring him in at leisure." 3 SCENE II. "Lower messes. A mess was a company of four persons, dining together with an apportioned provision, such as we see at this day in the halls of the Inns of Court. The lower messes are therefore the in- "" below the salt. The setting out the provisions apportioned to each mess was a great duty in the old establishments of the nobility. In the Northumberland Household Book' we find that the clerks of the kitchen are to be with the cooks at the "striking out of the messes;' and in the same curious picture of ancient man- ners there are the most minute directions for serving delicacies to my lord's own mess; but bacon and other pièces de résistance to the Lord Chamberlain's and Steward's messes. "Trol-my-dames. ACT IV. * SCENE II.—“ Every 'leven wether-tods.” SHAKSPERE has here brought his agricultural knowledge to bear. We have every reason to believe that he was a practical farmer; for, after he had bought his estate in Stratford Fields, in 1602, we find him suing one Philip Rogers for a debt of 35 shillings and 10 pence, for corn delivered; and in 1605 he purchased a moiety of the tithes of Stratford, which he pro- bably had to collect in kind. These circum- stances are shown in the 'Biography,' by existing documents. When he puts this speech, there- fore, in the mouth of the Clown, we may reason- ably conclude that he knew, of his own ex- perience, that the average produce of eleven wethers was a tod of wool; and that the value of a tod was a "pound and odd shilling." Rit- son says, "It appears from Stafford's 'Breefe Conceipte of English Pollicye,' 1581, that the price of a tod of wool was at that period twenty or two-and-twenty shillings; so that the medium price was exactly a 'pound and odd shilling.' 5 SCENE II.—“ Three-man song-men all.” Singers of three-part songs, i. e., songs for three voices. And in some old plays we find the term three-men's songs. In 'The Turnament of Tottenham,' an ancient ballad (see 'Percy's Reliques," ii. 15), ascribed to Gilbert Pilkington, and supposed to have been written before the 518 [ACT IV. ILLUSTRATIONS. time of Edward III., a six-men's song is thus mentioned:- 6 "In every corner of the house Was melody delicious, For to hear precious Of six-men's song.' • SCENE II.-"Means and bases.” Means are tenors-intermediate voices, be- tween the treble and bass. 7 SCENE II.-"Sings psalms to hornpipes." In the early days of psalmody it was not un- usual to adapt the popular secular tunes to versions of the psalms, the rage for which originated in France. (See Warton's History of Poetry,' sec. xlv.) 8 SCENE II.—" Trol-my-dames." Farmer quotes an old treatise on Buxton baths, in which, describing the amusements of the place, the writer says, "The ladies, gentle- women, wives, maids, if the weather be not agreeable, may have in the end of a bench eleven holes made, into the which to troule pummits, either violent or soft, after their own discretion: the pastime troule in madame is termed." This is evidently the same game as our bagatelle, with the only difference that there are eleven holes instead of nine. In the bagatelle-board the balls are sometimes driven through the arches of a bridge which crosses it; and for this reason the game was anciently called Pigeon-holes, as well as Trou-madame. In Rowley's 'New Wonder' we have- "I am sure you cannot but hear what quicksands he finds out; as dice, cards, pigeon-holes." • SCENE II.-"An ape-bearer." This personage was always a favourite with the English. We have representations of him in manuscripts as old as the thirteenth century; and in Shakspere's time he had lost none of his popularity. Jonson, in his Induction to Bar- tholomew Fair,' says, "He has ne'er a sword- and-buckler man in his fair; nor a juggler with a well-educated ape to come over the chain for the king of England, and back again for the prince." 10 SCENE II.-"A motion of the prodigal son.” The puppet-show was anciently called a motion; and the subjects which were usually [An Ape-bearer.] chosen for these exhibitions were mostly scrip- tural. In Jonson's humorous play which we have just quoted, the puppet-show professor says, "O the motions that I, Lanthorn Leather- head, have given light to in my time, since my master Pod died! Jerusalem was a stately thing, and so was Nineveh, and the City of of Norwich." The Spectator,' No. 14, speak- ing of Powell the puppet-show man, says, "there cannot be too great encouragement given to his skill in motions, provided he is under proper restrictions." Even in the days of Anne, these successors of the old Mysteries still presented scriptural subjects. Strutt, in his 'Sports and Pastimes,' has printed a Bar- tholomew Fair bill of that time, from which the following is an extract:- "At Crawley's booth, over against the Crown tavern in Smithfield, during the time of Bar- tholomew Fair, will be presented a little opera, called 'The Old Creation of the World,' yet newly revived; with the addition of Noah's Flood; also several fountains playing water during the time of the play. The last scene does present Noah and his family coming out of the ark, with all the beasts two and two, and all the fowls of the air seen in a prospect sitting upon trees; likewise over the ark is seen the sun rising in a most glorious manner: more- over, a multitude of angels will be seen in a double rank, which presents a double prospect, one for the sun, the other for a palace, where will be seen six angels ringing of bells." SCENE III.] 519 A WINTER'S TALE. " SCENE II. "Jog on, jog on, the foot-path way.” This is the first of three stanzas of a song which we do not meet with in print till 1661, when it appeared in 'The Antidote against Melancholy,' a collection of ballads, &c. We are told that it was set as a round for three voices by John Hilton, and so published in the first edition of his 'Catch that catch can,' an edition so rare that we have never been able to obtain a sight of it. The melody, however, is given in 'The Dancing Master' of 1650, under the title of 'Jog on, my honey,' and is as fol- lows, a bass and accompaniment being now added to it, and the measure changed from six- crotchet time to six-quaver :— T on, jog on, the foot - path way, And merrily hent the # #6 8 Jog T #e Ī stile, O; A mer-ry heart goes all the day, Your sad tires in I T a mile, O. 12 SCENE III.-"O Proserpina." The passage in the Fifth Book of Ovid's 'Metamorphoses' is thus translated by Golding, 1587:- "While in this garden Proserpine was taking her pastime, In gathering either violets blue, or lilies white as lime; Dis spied her, lov'd her, caught her up, and all at once well near.- The lady with a wailing voice affright did often call Her mother- And as she from the upper part her garment would have rent, By chance she let her lap slip down, and out her flowers went." 13 SCENE III.-"Fadings.” The fadings was a dance. Malone quotes a song from 'Sportive Wit,' 1666, which implics that it was a rustic dance :- "The courtiers scorn us country clowns, We country clowns do scorn the court; We can be as merry upon the downs As you at midnight with all your sport, With a fading, with a fading." It would appear also, from a letter appended to Boswell's edition of Malone, that it was an Irish dance, and that it was practised upon re- joicing occasions as recently as 1803, the date of the letter. "The dance is called Rinca Fada, and means, literally, the long dance.' Though faed is a reed, the name of the dance is not borrowed from it; 'fada is the adjective, long, and rinca the substantive, dance.' In Irish the adjective 520 [ACT IV. ILLUSTRATIONS. follows the substantive, differing from the Eng- lish construction; hence rinca fada; faeden is the diminutive, and means little reed; faeden | is the first person of the verb to whistle, either with the lips or with a reed; i. e., I whistle. "This dance is still practised on rejoicing oc- casions in many parts of Ireland; a king and queen are chosen from amongst the young per- sons who are the best dancers; the queen carries a garland composed of two hoops placed at right angles, and fastened to a handle; the hoops are covered with flowers and ribbons; you have seen it, I dare say, with the May-maids. Fre- quently in the course of the dance the king and queen lift up their joined hands as high as they can, she still holding the garland in the other. The most remote couple from the king and queen first pass under; all the rest of the line linked together follow in succession: when the last has passed, the king and queen suddenly face about and front their companions; this is often repeated during the dance, and the various undulations are pretty enough, resembling the movements of a serpent. The dancers on the first of May visit such newly-wedded pairs of a certain rank as have been married since last May-day in the neighbourhood, who commonly bestow on them a stuffed ball richly decked with gold and silver lace, (this I never heard of before,) and accompanied with a present in money, to regale themselves after the dance. This dance is practised when the bonfires are lighted up, the queen hailing the return of summer in a popular Irish song, beginning,— 'Thuga mair sein lu souré ving.' • We lead on summer-see! she follows in our train.”” 14 SCENE III.—“Poking-sticks of steel.” Stow tells us that "about the sixteenth year of the queen (Elizabeth) began the making of steel poking-sticks, and until that time all laun- dresses used setting-sticks made of wood or bone." The ruff itself, in the setting of which the poking-stick was used, (that of steel having the advantage of being heated,) is thus de- scribed by Stubbes, with his accustomed bitter- ness against the luxuries of his time:- "The women use great ruffs, and neckerchers of holland, lawn, cambric, and such cloth as the greatest thread shall not be so big as the least hair that is; and lest they should fall down, they are smeared and starched in the devil's liquor, I mean starch; after that dried with great diligence, streaked, patted, and rubbed very nicely, and so applied to their goodly necks, and, withal, underpropped, with supporters (as I told you before), the stately arches of pride; beyond all this they have a further fetch, nothing inferior to the rest, as namely, three or four degrees of minor ruffs, placed gradatim, one beneath another, and all under the master devil-ruff: the skirts then of these great ruffs are long and side every way plaited, and crested full curiously, God wot. Then, last of all, they are either clogged with gold, silver, or silk lace of stately price, wrought all over with needle- work, speckled and sparkled here and there with the sun, the moon, the stars, and many other antiques, strange to behold. Some are wrought with open work down to the midst of the ruff and further; some with close work, some with purled lace so clogged, and other gewgaws so pestered, as the ruff is the least part of itself. Sometimes they are pinned up to their ears, sometimes they are suffered to hang over their shoulders, like windmill-sails fluttering in the wind, and thus every one pleaseth herself in her own foolish devices.” 15 SCENE III.-"A pair of sweet gloves." Autolycus has offered for sale "Gloves as sweet as damask roses." Howes, who continues 'Stow's Chronicle,' thus describes the introduction of perfumed gloves in the early part of the reign of Elizabeth :- "Milliners or haberdashers had not then any gloves embroidered, or trimmed with gold or silk, neither gold nor embroidered girdles and hangers; neither could they make any costly wash or perfume until, about the fourteenth or fifteenth year of the queen, the right honour- able Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, came from Italy, and brought with him gloves, sweet bags, a perfumed leather jerkin, and other plea- sant things; and that year the queen had a pair of perfumed gloves trimmed only with four tufts or roses of coloured silk. The queen took such pleasure in those gloves, that she was pic- tured with those gloves upon her hands, and for many years after it was called the Earl of Ox- ford's perfume." 16 SCENE III. "Made themselves all men of hair." The original stage direction sufficiently ex- plains this: "Here a dance of twelve satyrs." We find, from a book of songs composed by SCENE III.] 521 A WINTER'S TALE. Thomas Ravenscroft and others, in the time of Shakspere, that in this popular entertainment the satyrs had an appropriate roundel :- "Round a round, a rounda, keep your ring; To the glorious sun we sing; Ho, ho! He that wears the flaming rays, And the imperial crown of bays, Him, with him, with shouts and songs we praise; Ho, ho! That in his bounty would vouchsafe to grace The humble sylvans and their shaggy race." The satyrs' dance was not confined to England; and it has been rendered memorable by the fearful accident with which it was accompanied at the court of France in 1392. The descrip- tion by Froissart of this calamity is so graphic, that we are sure our readers will not regret the space which it occupies. We give it from Lord Berners' fine old translation :--- 'It fortuned that, soon after the retaining of the foresaid knight, a marriage was made in the king's house between a young knight of Ver- mandois and one of the queen's gentlewomen; and because they were both of the king's house, the king's uncles and other lords, ladies, and damoiselles, made great triumph: there was the Dukes of Orléans, Berry, and Bourgoyne, and their wives, dancing and making great joy. The king made a great supper to the lords and ladies, and the queen kept her estate, desiring every man to be merry: and there was a squire of Normandy, called Hogreymen Gen- say, he advised to make some pastime. The day of the marriage, which was on a Tuesday before Candlemas, he provided for a mummery against night he devised six coats made of linen cloth, covered with pitch, and thereon flax-like hair, and had them ready in a chamber. The king put on one of them, and the Earl of Jouy, a young lusty knight, another, and Sir Charles of Poitiers the third, who was son to the Earl of Valentenois, and Sir Juan of Foix another, and the son of the Lord Nanthorillet had on the fifth, and the squire himself had on the sixth; and when they were thus arrayed in these sad coats, and sewed fast in them, they seemed like wild woodhouses, full of hair from the top of the head to the sole of the foot. This device pleased well the French king, and was well content with the squire for it. They were ap- parelled in these coats secretly in a chamber that no man knew thereof but such as helped · Savages. them. When Sir Juan of Foix had well de- vised these coats, he said to the king,—' Sir, command straightly that no man approach near us with any torch or fire, for if the fire fasten in any of these coats, we shall all be burnt without remedy.' The king answered and said, —'Juan, ye speak well and wisely; it shall be done as ye have devised;' and incontinent sent for an usher of his chamber, commanding him to go into the chamber where the ladies danced, and to command all the varlets holding torches to stand up by the walls, and none of them to approach near to the woodhouses that should come thither to dance. The usher did the king's commandment, which was fulfilled. Soon after the Duke of Orléans entered into the hall, accompanied with four knights and six torches, and knew nothing of the king's commandment for the torches, nor of the mummery that was coming thither, but thought to behold the dancing, and began himself to dance. with the king with the five other came in; they were so disguised in flax that no man knew them: five of them were fastened one to ano- ther; the king was loose, and went before and led the device. There- "When they entered into the hall every man took so great heed to them that they forgot the torches: the king departed from his company and went to the ladies to sport with them, as youth required, and so passed by the queen and came to the Duchess of Berry, who took and was, but held him by the arm to know what he the king would not show his name. Then the duchess said, 'Ye shall not escape me till I know your name.' In this mean season great mischief fell on the other, and by reason of the Duke of Orléans; howbeit, it was by ignorance, and against his will, for if he had considered before the mischief that fell, he would not have done as he did for all the good in the world; but he was so desirous to know what personages the five were that danced, he put one of the torches that his servant held so near, that the heat of the fire entered into the flax (wherein if fire take there is no remedy), and suddenly was on a bright flame, and so each of them set fire on other; the pitch was so fastened to the linen cloth, and their shirts so dry and fine, and so joining to their flesh, that they began to burn and to cry for help: none durst come near them; they that did burnt their hands by rea- son of the heat of the pitch: one of them called Nanthorillet advised him how the botry was 522 [ACT IV. ILLUSTRATIONS. thereby; he fled thither, and cast himself into a vessel full of water, wherein they rinsed pots, which saved him, or else he had been dead as the other were; yet he was sore hurt with the fire. When the queen heard the cry that they made, she doubted her of the king, for she knew well that he should be one of the six; therewith she fell into a swoon, and knights and ladies came and comforted her. A piteous noise there was in the hall. The Duchess of Berry delivered the king from that peril, for she did cast over him the train of her gown, and covered him from the fire. The king would have gone from her. Whither will ye go?' quoth she; 'ye see well how your company burns. What are ye?' 'I am the king,' quoth he. 'Haste ye,' quoth she, 'and get you into other apparel, and come to the queen.' And the Duchess of Berry had somewhat comforted her, and had showed her how she should see the king shortly. Therewith the king came to the queen, and as soon as she saw him, for joy she embraced him and fell in a swoon; then she was borne to her chamber, and the king went with her. And the bastard of Foix, who was all on a fire, cried ever with a loud voice, ‘Save the king, save the king!' Thus was the king saved. It was happy for him that he went from his company, for else he had been dead without remedy. This great mischief fell thus about midnight in the hall of Saint Powle in Paris, where there was two burnt to death in the place, and other two, the bastard of Foix and the Earl of Jouy, borne to their lodgings, and died within two days after in great misery and pain." The illuminated Froissart in the British Mu- seum supplies us with a representation of this tragical event. It would appear from a passage | ing, and playing upon all sorts of instruments. in Melvil's Memoirs' that the French brought this species of mummery to the court of Mary Queen of Scots :- During their abode (that of the ambassadors who assembled to congratulate Mary Queen of Scots on the birth of her son) at Stirling, there was daily banqueting, dancing, and triumph. And at the principal banquet there fell out a great grudge among the Englishmen; for a Frenchman, called Bastian, devised a number of men formed like satyrs, with long tails, and whips in their hands, running before the meat, which was brought through the great hall upon a machine or engine, marching as appeared alone, with musicians clothed like maids, sing- But the satyrs were not content only to make way or room, but put their hands behind them to their tails, which they wagged with their hands in such sort as the Englishmen supposed it had been devised and done in derision of them, weakly apprehending that which they should not have appeared to understand. For Mr. Hatton, Mr. Lignish, and the most part of the gentlemen desired to sup before the queen and great banquet, that they might see the better the order and ceremonies of the triumph: but so soon as they perceived the satyrs wagging their tails, they all sat down upon the bare floor behind the back of the table, that they might not see themselves derided, as they thought. SCENE III.] 523 A WINTER'S TALE. Mr. Hatton said unto me, if it were not in the queen's presence, he would put a dagger to the heart of that French knave Bastian, who, he alleged, had done it out of despite that the queen made more of them than of the French- men." 17 SCENE III.-"Pomander." We have a passage in Cavendish s Life of Wolsey' in which the great cardinal is described coming after mass into his privy chamber, "holding in his hand a very fair orange, where- of the meat or substance within was taken out, and filled up again with the part of a sponge, wherein was vinegar and other confections against the pestilent airs; the which he most commonly smelt unto, passing among the press, or else when he was pestered with many suitors." This was a pomander. It appears from a pas- sage in Mr. Burgon's valuable Life of Sir Tho- mas Gresham that the supposed orange held in the hand in several ancient portraits, amongst others in those of Lord Berners and Gresham, was in truth a pomander. WJACKSON SA ACT V. 18 SCENE II.-"Weather-bitten conduit." THE old stone conduits were in Shakspere's time very numerous in London, and allusions to them are frequent in the dramatists. We give a representation of the "Little Conduit" in Westcheap, built in 1442. 19 SCENE III. "The ruddiness upon her lip is wet." men of Verona' that the words statue and pic- ture were often used without distinction. In the passage before us we have the mention of oily painting;" and the clown talks of going to see the "queen's picture." But it is clear from other passages that a statue, in the modern sense of the word, was intended. Leontes says, "Does not the stone rebuke me, For being more stone than it?” We have shown in a note to the Two Gentle- It is clear, therefore, from all the context, that COMEDIES.-VOL. II. NN 524 COSTUME. the statue must have been painted. Sir Henry rally designated as a strange absurdity." We Wotton calls this practice an English barbarism; have touched upon this in the ' Costume' but it is well known that the ancients had painted below. statues. The mention of Julio Romano is gene- [Julio Romano.] COSTUME. THIS Comedy is so thoroughly taken out of the where the Emperor of Russia" represents region of the literal, that it would be worse than some dim conception of a mighty monarch of idle to talk of its costume. When the stage- When the stage- far-off lands; and "that rare Italian master, manager shall be able to reconcile the contra- Julio Romano," stands as the abstract personifi- dictions, chronological and geographical, with cation of excellence in art. It is quite im- which it abounds, he may decide whether the possible to imagine that he who, when it was characters should wear the dress of the ancient necessary to be precise, as in the Roman plays, or the modern world, and whether the archi- has painted manners with a truth and exactness tectural scenes should partake most of the Gre- which have left at an immeasurable distance cian style of the times of the Delphic oracle, or such imitations of ancient manners as the of the Italian in the more familiar days of Julio learned Ben Jonson has produced, that he Romano. We cannot assist him in this diffi- should have perplexed this play with such ano- culty. It may be sufficient for the reader of malies through ignorance or even carelessness. this delicious play to know that he is purposely There can be no doubt that the most accom- taken out of the empire of the real;—to wander plished scholars amongst our early dramatists, in some poetical sphere where Bohemia is but a when dealing with the legendary and the ro- name for a wild country upon the sea, and the mantic, purposely committed these anachron- oracular voices of the pagan world are heard isms. Greene, as we have shown, of whose amidst the merriment of "Whitsun pastorals scholarship his friends boasted, makes a ship and the solemnities of "Christian burial;" sail from Bohemia in the way that Shakspere "3 COSTUME. 525 makes a ship wrecked upon a Bohemian coast. | talking of Shakspere wanting "sense," as we When Jonson, therefore, in his celebrated con- versation with Drummond of Hawthornden, said " Shakspere wanted art, and sometimes sense, for in one of his plays he brought in a number of men saying they had suffered ship. wreck in Bohemia, where is no sea near by a hundred miles," he committed the unfairness of imputing to Shakspere the fault, if fault it be, which he knew to be the common property of the romantic drama. Gifford, in a note upon this passage in his 'Life of Jonson,' says, "No one ever read the play without noticing the 'absurdity,' as Dr. Johnson calls it; yet for this simple truism, for this casual remark in the freedom of conversation, Jonson is held up to the indignation of the world, as if the blunder was invisible to all but himself." We take no part in the stupid attempt of Shakspere's com- mentators to show that Jonson treated his great contemporary with a paltry jealousy; but we object to Jonson, in the instance before us, object to Gifford speaking of the anachronism as a "blunder." It is absurd to imagine that Shakspere did not know better. Mr. Collier has quoted a passage from Taylor, the water- poet, who published his journey to Prague, in which the honest waterman laughs at an alder- man who "catches me by the goll, demanding if Bohemia be a great town, whether there be any meat in it, and whether the last fleet of ships be arrived there." Mr. Collier infers that Taylor " ridicules a vulgar error of the kind" committed by Shakspere. We rather think that he meant to ridicule very gross ignorance generally; and we leave our readers to take their choice of placing Greene and Shakspere in the same class with Taylor's "Gregory Gan- dergoose, an Alderman of Gotham," or of be- lieving that a confusion of time and place was considered (whether justly is not here the ques- tion) a proper characteristic of the legendary drama-such as 'A Winter's Tale' [Pedlar.] } THE TEMPEST ·ཤ KJACKEN TA Fall ["Where the bee sucks."] ال INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. thus: THIS comedy stands the first in the folio | storm and a shipwreck. Horn then proceeds collection of 1623, in which edition it was originally printed. The original text is printed with singular correctness; and if, with the exception of one or two obvious typographical errors, it had continued to be reprinted without any change, the world would have possessed a copy with the mint- mark of the poet upon it, instead of the clipped and scoured impression that bears the name of Steevens. So much has been written on 'The Tem- pest,' and so unnecessary is it for us to analyse the plot or dwell on the charms of the poetry, that we shall here content our- selves with presenting our readers with some of the peculiar and original views of Franz Horn, translated from his 'Shaksperes Schauspiele erläutert.' This very acute and lively critic sets out by observing that nothing was more common in the early romantic literature than the imagination of adventures in a desert island, in a far distant ocean. This consideration alone, we think, is sufficient to make us little solicitous to localise the scene of Prospero's island, or to seek for any particular incidents that may have suggested to Shakspere a story with a "The beginning takes our fancy wholly a prisoner. We see a ship nearing the island, driving along in the greatest danger amid storm and tempest, and struggling as with a last effort against the fatal summons. Here, placed in immediate contact, are sovereigns and their heirs with rude boatswains, sailors, and jesters, the reverend old man with the blooming youth, affright with wit, despera- tion with prayer. Nevertheless, the effect of this scene is not entirely tragic: we are too much occupied with the passing events, -we see how they develop the unannounced characters,-and the lightnings of wit flash so strongly between the lightnings of heaven as to give us no time to bestow on any particular individual a directly tragical melancholy feeling; for no sooner have we had this glance than two noble beings imme- diately vouchsafe to speak to us, and quiet us as to the fate of the shipwrecked person- ages who have interested us so much. "These are the lord of the island and his daughter. In Prospero we have a delineation of peculiar profundity. He was, once, not altogether a just prince, not thoroughly a INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 529 just man; but he had the disposition to be both. His soul thirsted after knowledge; his mind, sincere in itself, after love; and his fancy, after the secrets of nature: but he forgot, what a prince should least of all forget, that, upon this moving earth, superior acquirements, in order to stand firmly, must be exercised carefully; that the world is full of enemies who can only be subdued by a watchful power and prudence, and that in certain situations the armour ought never to be put off. Thus it became easy for his nearest relation, his brother, with the help of a powerful neighbouring king who could not resist an offered but unjustifiable advan- tage, to depose him from his dukedom. But as the pure morals of the prince, although they were perhaps but lazily exercised in behalf of his subjects, had nevertheless acquired their love, and the usurper not daring to make an attack on the lives of the fallen, Prospero saved himself, his daughter, and a part of his magical books, upon a desert island. Here he becomes, what, in its highest sense, he had not yet been, a father and prince. His knowledge extends. Nature listens to him, perhaps because he learned to know and love her more inwardly. Zephyr-like spirits, full of a tender frolicsome humour, and rude earth-born gnomes, are compelled to serve him. The whole island is full of wonders, but only such as the fancy willingly receives, of sounds and songs, of merry helpers and comical tormentors; and Pros- pero shows his great human wisdom particu- larly in the manner with which he, as the spiritual centre, knows how to conduct his intercourse with friends and foes. First, with his daughter. Miranda is his highest, his one, his all; nevertheless there is visible a certain elevation, a solemnity, in his behaviour towards her,―peculiarities which, even with the deepest love, the severely tried and aged man easily assumes. Indeed, much as the pure sense of his daughter must have long cheered him, he deems it good to relate to her now for the first time the history of his earlier sufferings, when he has mastery over, and the power to punish, his adversaries. for freedom, Prospero is strict and friendly, praising and blaming at the proper time; for a moment angry, but only when he thinks he perceives ingratitude. Towards Caliban he is a most complete oriental despot; and, knowing that he has to do with a miscreated being, whom only 'stripes may move, not kindness,' he treats him accordingly. "Caliban, who, in spite of his imperfect, brutish, and half-human nature, as the son of a witch, is something marvellously excit- ing, and as pretender to the sovereignty of the island something ridiculously sublime, has been considered by every one as an in- imitable character of the most powerful poetic fancy; and the more the character is investi- gated, the more is our attention rewarded. With all his brutish propensities, our feel- ings toward him never rise to a thorough hatred. We find him only laughably horrible, and as a marvellous though at bottom a feeble monster highly interesting, for we foresee from the first that none of his threats will be fulfilled. "Opposed to him stands Ariel, by no means an ethereal featureless angel, but a real airy and frolicsome spirit, agreeable and open, who is also capricious, roguish, and, with his other qualities, somewhat mischievous. He is thankful to Prospero for his release from the most confined of all confined situations, but his gratitude is not a natural virtue (we might almost add, not an airy virtue); therefore he must (like man) be sometimes reminded of his debt, and held in check. Only the promise of his freedom in two days restores him again to his amiability, and he then finds pleasure in executing the plans of his master with a delightful activity. "The pure poetry of nature and genius inspires us; and when we hear Prospero recite his far too modest epilogue, after laying down his enchanted wand, we have no wish to turn our minds to any frivolous thoughts, for the magic we have experienced was too charming and too mighty not to be enduring." The conclusion of Horn's critique will find an echo in every reader or spectator of 'The "Towards Ariel, the airy spirit thirsting | Tempest.' 002 PERSONS REPRESENTED. ALONSO, King of Naples. Appears, Act I. sc. 1. Act II. sc. 1. Act III. sc. 3. Act V. sc. 1. SEBASTIAN, his brother. Appears, Act I. sc. 1. Act II. sc. 1. Act III. sc. 3. Act V. sc. 1. PROSPERO, the rightful Duke of Milan. Appears, Act I. sc. 2. Act III. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act IV. sc. 1. Act V. sc. 1. ANTONIO, the usurping Duke of Milan, bro- ther to Prospero. Appears, Act I. sc. 1. Act II. sc. 1. Act III. sc. 3. Act V. sc. 1. FERDINAND, son to the King of Naples. Appears, Act I. sc. 1; sc. 2. Act III. sc. 1. Act IV. sc. 1. Act V. sc. 1. GONZALO, an honest old counsellor of Naples. Appears, Act I. sc. 1. Act II. sc. 1. Act III. sc. 3. Act V. sc. 1. ADRIAN, a lord. Appears, Act II. sc. 1. Act III. sc. 3. Act V. sc. 1. FRANCISCO, a lord. Appears, Act II. sc. 1. Act III. sc. 3. Act V. sc. 1. CALIBAN, a savage and deformed slave. Appears, Act I. sc. 2. Act II. sc. 2. Act III. sc. 2. Act IV. sc. 1. Act V. sc. 1. TRINCULO, a jester. Appears, Act II. sc. 2. Act III. sc. 2. Act IV. sc. 1. Act V. sc. 1. STEPHANO, a drunken butler. Appears, Act II. sc. 2. Act III. sc. 2. Act IV. sc. 1. Act V. sc. 1. Master of a ship, Boatswain, and Mariners. Appear, Act I. sc. 1. Act V. sc. 1. MIRANDA, daughter to Prospero. Appears, Act I. sc. 2. Act III. sc. 1. Act IV. sc. 1. Act V. sc. 1. ARIEL, an airy spirit. Appears, Act I. sc. 2. Act II. sc. 1. Act III. sc. 2; sc. 3. Act IV. sc. 1. Act V. sc. 1. IRIS, a spirit. Appears, Act IV. sc. 1. CERES, a spirit. Appears, Act IV. sc. 1. JUNO, a spirit. Appears, Act IV. sc. 1. Nymphs. Appear, Act IV. sc. 1. Reapers. Appear, Act IV. sc. 1. Other spirits attending on Prospero. SCENE, THE SEA, WITH A SHIP; AFTERWARDS AN ISLAND. ACT I. SCENE I.-On a Ship at Sea. A Storm, with Thunder and Lightning. Enter a Ship-master and a Boatswain. MASTER. Boatswain,-1 BOATS. Here, master: What cheer? MASTER. Good: Speak to the mariners: fall to 't yarelyª, or we run ourselves aground: bestir, bestir. Enter Mariners. [Exit. BOATS. Heigh, my hearts; cheerly, cheerly, my hearts: yare, yare: Take in a Yarely, the adverb of yare, quick, ready. Yare is used several times by Shakspere as a sea- term (which it was), but not exclusively so. 532 [ACT I. THE TEMPEST. the topsail Tend to the master's whistle.-Blow till thou burst thy winda, : if room enough! Enter ALONSO, SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, FERDINAND, Gonzalo, and others. ALON. Good boatswain, have care. BOATS. I pray now, keep below. ANT. Where is the master, bosonc ? Where's the master? Play the men'. BOATS. Do you not hear him? You mar our labour: Keep your cabins: You do assist the storm. GON. Nay, good, be patient. BOATS. When the sea is. Hence! What care these roarers for the name of king? To cabin: silence; trouble us not. GON. Good; yet remember whom thou hast aboard. BOATS. None that I more love than myself. You are a counsellor ; if you can command these elements to silence, and work the peace of the present, we will not hand a rope more; use your authority. If you cannot, give thanks you have lived so long, and make yourself ready in your cabin for the mis- chance of the hour, if it so hap.-Cheerly, good hearts.-Out of our way, I [Exit. say. GON. I have great comfort from this fellow: methinks he hath no drowning mark upon him; his complexion is perfect gallows. Stand fast, good fate, to his hanging! make the rope of his destiny our cable, for our own doth little advantage! If he be not born to be hanged our case is miserable. Re-enter Boatswain. [Exeunt. BOATS. Down with the topmast; yare; lower, lower; bring her to try with main-course. [A cry within.] A plague upon this howling! they are louder than the weather, or ourd office.- Re-enter SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, and GONZAalo. Yet again? what do you here? Shall we give o'er and drown? Have you a mind to sink? SEB. A pox o' your throat! you bawling, blasphemous, incharitable dog! a Steevens would read, "Blow till thou burst thee, wind.' b Behave like men. So in our translation of the Bible, 2 Sam. x. 12, "Let us play the men for our people." In the first edition (1623) Antonio here uses the sailor's word boson, instead of the more cor- rect "boatswain," which is put in the mouth of the King of Naples. The variation, we think, could scarcely be accidental; although Mr. Dyce says "it arose merely from the unsettled state of our early orthography." Unless a distinction had been meant between the dignified language of the king, and the familiar tone of the usurping duke, the words would surely have been written and printed in one way, occurring so close together. d Or our. Steevens changes this into to your. He would make the boatswain say to your office, as if this were nautical language. Our office is here used in the sense of our business, which was essentially noisy. SCENE I.] 533 THE TEMPEST. BOATS. Work you, then. ANT. Hang, cur, hang! you whoreson, insolent noisemaker, we are less afraid to be drowned than thou art. GON. I'll warrant him fora drowning; though the ship were no stronger than a nut-shell, and as leaky as an unstanched wench. BOATS. Lay her a-hold, a-hold: set her two courses; off to sea again; lay her off. Enter Mariners, wet. MAR. All lost! to prayers, to prayers! all lost! BOATS. What, must our mouths be cold? GON. The king and prince at prayers! let us assist them, For our case is as theirs. SEB. I am out of patience. C ANT. We are merely cheated of our lives by drunkards.— This wide-chopp'd rascal;-'Would thou mightst lie drowning The washing of ten tides! GON. He'll be hang'd yet; Though every drop of water swear against it, And gape at wid'st to glut ª him. CONFUSED VOICES WITHIN.-Mercy on us! We split, we split !-Farewell, my wife and children! Farewell, brother! We split, we split, we splite!— ANT. Let's all sink with the king. SEB. Let's take leave of him. [Exeunt. [Exit. [Exit. GON. Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground; long heath, brown furze f, anything: The wills above be done! but I would fain die a dry death. a For. Steevens reads from. For drowning is on account of drowning. [Exit. b We follow the punctuation of Lord Mulgrave. Steevens has, set her two courses off. Captain Glascock also objects to this ordinary punctuation; and explains "that the ship's head is to be put leeward, and that the vessel is to be drawn off the land under that canvass nautically de- nominated the two courses.' C Merely-absolutely. • To glut-to swallow. "" • These various exclamations, which are usually, but most inconsistently, given to Gonzalo, should be considered, according to Johnson, to be spoken by no determinate characters. They form part of the common stage direction, "confused noise within." We assign the words to voices within. f Hanmer reads, "ling, heath, broom, furze." So in Harrison's 'Description of Britain,' pre- fixed to Holinshed, we find, "Brome, heth, firze, brakes, whinnes, ling,"-all characteristics of "barren ground." But "long heath" and "brown furze" are quite intelligible, and are much more natural than an enumeration of many various wild plants. 534 [ACT I. THE TEMPEST. SCENE II.-The Island: before the Cell of Prospero. Enter PROSPERO and MIRANDA. MIRA. If by your art, my dearest father, you have Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them : The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch, But that the sea, mounting to the welkin's cheek, Dashes the fire out. O, I have suffer'd With those that I saw suffer! a brave vessel, Who had no doubt some noble creature a in her, Dash'd all to pieces. O, the cry did knock Against my very heart! Poor souls! they perish'd. Had I been any god of power, I would PRO. Have sunk the sea within the earth, or e'er b It should the good ship so have swallow'd, and The fraughting souls within her. Be collected; No more amazement: tell your piteous heart, There's no harm done. MIRA. PRO. O, woe the day! No harm. I have done nothing but in care of thee, (Of thee, my dear one! thee, my daughter!) who Art ignorant of what thou art, nought knowing Of whence I am; nor that I am more better Than Prospero, master of a full poor cell, And thy no greater father. MIRA. PRO. More to know "T is time Did never meddle with my thoughts. I should inform thee farther. Lend thy hand, And pluck my magic garment from me.—So; [Lays down his mantle. Lie there my art.—Wipe thou thine eyes; have comfort. The direful spectacle of the wrack, which touch'd The very virtue of compassion in thee, I have with such provision in mine art So safely order'd, that there is no soul— No, not so much perdition as an hair, Betid to any creature in the vessel a Creature. So the original; but Theobald reads creatures, which is invariably followed. Mi- randa means to say that, in addition to those she saw suffer,-the "poor souls" that perished,— the common sailors,—there was no doubt some superior person on board,—some noble creature. Or e'er-before-sooner than. So in Ecclesiastes, "Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken.” с Fraughting-constituting the fraught, or freight. The common reading is freighting. SCENE II.] 535 THE TEMPEST. Which thou heard'st cry, which thou saw'st sink. Sit down; For thou must now know farther. MIRA. PRO. You have often Begun to tell me what I am; but stopp'd, And left me to a bootless inquisition; Concluding, "Stay, not yet.". The hour 's now come; The very minute bids thee ope thine ear; Obey, and be attentive. Canst thou remember A time before we came unto this cell? I do not think thou canst; for then thou wast not Out three years oldª. MIRA. Certainly, sir, I can. PRO. By what? by any other house, or person? Of anything the image tell me that Hath kept with thy remembrance. MIRA. "T is far off; And rather like a dream than an assurance That my remembrance warrants: Had I not Four or five women once that tended me? PRO. Thou hadst, and more, Miranda: But how is it That this lives in thy mind? What see'st thou else In the dark backward and abysm of time? If thou remember'st aught ere thou cam'st here, How thou cam'st here thou mayst. MIRA. But that I do not. b PRO. Twelve year since, Miranda, twelve year since, Thy father was the duke of Milan, and A prince of power. MIRA. Sir, are not you my father? PRO. Thy mother was a piece of virtue, and She said thou wast my daughter; and thy father Was duke of Milan; and his only heir And princess no worse issued ©. MIRA. PRO. O, the heavens ! What foul play had we, that we came from thence? Or blessed was 't we did? a Out, &c.-quite three years old. Both, both, my girl; b Twelve year-the reading of the folio; not twelve years. • The ordinary reading is,- ( Thy father Was duke of Milan; and his only heir A princess; no worse issued." Without changing the original from and to a, our punctuation gives the meaning with sufficient clearness. The semicolon, which is in the original, has produced the ambiguity. 536 [ACT I. THE TEMPEST. By foul play, as thou say'st, were we heav'd thence; But blessedly holp hither. MIRA. с O, my heart bleeds b To think o' the teena that I have turn'd you to, Which is from my remembrance! Please you, PRO. My brother, and thy uncle, call'd Antonio ", I pray thee mark me that a brother should Be so perfidious ;-he whom, next thyself, Of all the world I lov'd, and to him put The manage of my state, as, at that time, Through all the signiories it was the first, And Prospero the prime duke, being so reputed In dignity; and for the liberal arts farther. Without a parallel d: those being all my study, The government I cast upon my brother, And to my state grew stranger, being transported, And rapt in secret studies. Thy false uncle- Dost thou attend me? MIRA. Sir, most heedfully. a Teen-sorrow. b ↳ Antonio. Mr. Hunter in his 'Disquisition on the Tempest says, "This is another instance of a slight deterioration of Shakspere's exquisite melody by a useless alteration. A nice ear will be sensible at once that something is lost. My brother, and thy uncle, called Anthonio.”” Something is certainly lost-the h is lost. Throughout the play we have the spelling of Anthonio; but are we to understand that, in an age when the Italian language was as familiar as French is now, Shakspere meant the h to be pronounced? In 'Anthony and Cleopatra,' indeed, the Latin name is Anglicised; and it may be reasonably questioned whether the rhythm is not injured by the invariable modern use of Antony: but nevertheless are we to pronounce the h in the follow- ing line of the original edition,— "Is Cæsar with Anthonius priz'd so slight?” • This is ordinarily pointed,- I pray thee mark me-that a brother should Be so perfidious!" "3 The reader will observe with what admirable skill such interjectional expressions as “Dost thou attend me?"—" Thou attend'st not,"-" I pray thee, mark me," —are subsequently introduced, to break the long continuity of Prospero's narrative. But here, in the very beginning of his story, for Prospero to use a similar interruption quite unnecessarily is not an evidence of the same dra- matic skill. He simply means here to say,—and the original punctuation warrants us in believing so, I pray thee note how a brother could be so perfidious. d a The easy conversational flow of this narrative is amongst the finest things in the play. One idea grows out of the other without any very strict logical arrangement; for Prospero speaks out of the fulness of his heart. We follow the punctuation of the original. Mr. Hunter would regu- late the passage as follows:- "As, at that time, Though [of] all the seignories it was the first; And Prospero the prime duke; (being so reputed In dignity;) and for the liberal arts Without a parallel.” Though is the reading of the second folio. SCENE II.] 537 THE TEMPEST. PRO. Being once perfected how to grant suits, How to deny them; whom to advance, and whom a To trash ª for overtopping; new created The creatures that were mine, I say, or chang'd them, Or else new form'd them; having both the key Of officer and office, set all hearts i' th' state b To what tune pleas'd his ear; that now he was The ivy which had hid my princely trunk, And suck'd my verdure out on 't.—Thou attend'st not MIRA. O good sir, I do. PRO. I pray thee, mark me. I thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated © To closeness, and the bettering of my mind With that, which, but by being so retir'd, O'er-priz'd all popular rate, in my false brother Awak'd an evil nature and my trust, Like a good parent, did beget of him A falsehood, in its contrary as great As my trust was; which had, indeed, no limit, A confidence sans bound. He being thus lorded, Not only with what my revenue yielded, But what my power might else exact,—like one Who having unto truth, by telling of it, Made such a sinner of his memory, To credit his own lied,-he did believe He was indeede the duke; out of the substitution, And executing the outward face of royalty, With all prerogative:-Hence his ambition growing,- Dost thou hear? MIRA. f Your tale, sir, would cure deafness. PRO. To have no screen between this part he play'd, And him he play'd it for, he needs will be Absolute Milan: Me, poor man! my library a Was dukedom large enough; of temporal royalties He thinks me now incapable: confederates แ A trash is a term still in use among hunters, to denote a piece of leather, couples, or any other weight, fastened round the neck of a dog, when his speed is superior to the rest of the pack, log i. when he overtops them, when he hunts too quick." This is a note, having the initial C., in Boswell's edition. Mr. Hunter gives us the same information. b I' th' state. Steevens omits these words of the original, being "redundant in regard to metre;" and he asks, with a most knowing flippancy, "What hearts except such as were in the state could Antonio incline to his purpose?" с • Dedicated. So the original; the modern reading is dedicate. ◄ This is an involved sentence; but the meaning is perfectly clear-who having made such a sinner unto truth of his memory as to credit his own lie by telling of it. All modern editors, except Malone, omit indeed. ↑ Thou is omitted in all modern editions. 538 [ACT 1. THE TEMPEST. (So dry he was for sway) with the a king of Naples, To give him annual tribute, do him homage; Subject his coronet to his crown, and bend The dukedom, yet unbow'd, (alas, poor Milan!) To most ignoble stooping". MIRA. O the heavens ! PRO. Mark his condition, and the event; then tell me, If this might be a brother. MIRA. PRO. I should sin To think but nobly of my grandmother: Good wombs have borne bad sons. Now the condition. This king of Naples, being an enemy To me inveterate, hearkens my brother's suit; Which was, that he, in lieu o' the premises C Of homaged, and I know not how much tribute, Should presently extirpate me and mine Out of the dukedom; and confer fair Milan, With all the honours, on my brother: Whereon, A treacherous army levied, one midnight Fated to the purpose, did Antonio open The gates of Milan; and, i' the dead of darkness, The ministers for the purpose hurried thence Me, and thy crying self. MIRA. Alack, for pity! I, not rememb'ring how I cried out then, Will cry it o'er again: it is a hint, That wrings mine eyes to 'te. PRO. Hear a little further, And then I'll bring thee to the present business Which now's upon us; without the which, this story Were most impertinent. MIRA.. PRO. That hour destroy us? Wherefore did they not Well demanded, wench; My tale provokes that question. Dear, they durst not; (So dear the love my people bore me) nor set A mark so bloody on the business; but With colours fairer painted their foul ends. In few, they hurried us aboard a bark ; a The is omitted in the original. b Mr. Hunter says "most is an unauthorised substitution for much, the reading of the old copies." This is a mistake. Most is the reading of the first folio; much of the second. In lieu-in consideration of in exchange for. a The premises of homage, &c.—the circumstances of homage premised. • To 't is omitted in all popular editions. SCENE II.] 539 THE TEMPEST. Bore us some leagues to sea; where they prepar'd A rotten carcase of a boat a, not rigg'd, Nor tackle, sail, nor mast; the very rats Instinctively have quit it; there they hoist us, To cry to the sea that roar'd to us; to sigh To the winds, whose pity, sighing back again, Did us but loving wrong. MIRA. PRO. Was I then to you! Alack what trouble O! a cherubim Thou wast that did preserve me! Thou didst smile, Infused with a fortitude from heaven, b When I have deck'd the sea with drops full salt Under my burthen groan'd; which rais'd in me An undergoing stomach, to bear up Against what should ensue. MIRA. PRO. By Providence divine ©, How came we ashore? Some food we had, and some fresh water, that A noble Neapolitan, Gonzalo, Out of his charity (who being then appointed Master of this design) did give us; with ; Rich garments, linens, stuffs, and necessaries, Which since have steaded much; so, of his gentleness, Knowing I lov'd my books, he furnish'd me, From mine own library, with volumes that I prize above my dukedom. MIRA. PRO. But ever see that man! 'Would I might Now I arise: Sit still, and hear the last of our sea-sorrow. Here in this island we arriv'd; and here Have I, thy schoolmaster, made thee more profit Than other princess can, that have more time For vainer hours, and tutors not so careful. a Boat is the established reading, which it is, upon the whole, safest to retain. Butt is the reading of the original copies. The word, as it stands in the original, may give the notion of a vessel even more insecure than the most rotten boat. Mr. Hunter would adopt Butt (which is the word of the first and second folios, and with a capital), upon "the great critical canon of the 'Durior Lectio præferenda." b Deck'd. In the glossary of the Craven dialect we find that to deg is to sprinkle. Ray, in his catalogue of north-country words, refers us from deg to leck, which is interpreted "pour on." We cannot certainly receive deck'd in the usual sense of adorned. Its other meaning of covered still gives us a forced idea. C • To Miranda's question of "How came we ashore?" the modern editors make Prospero answer "By Providence divine;" but his entire narrative is the answer. a Princess. This is the reading of the original-"princesse." 540 [ACT I. THE TEMPEST. MIRA. Heavens thank you for 't! And now, I pray you, sir, (For still 't is beating in my mind,) your reason. For raising this sea-storm? PRO. Know thus far forth. By accident most strange, bountiful Fortune, Now my dear lady d, hath mine enemies. Brought to this shore: and by my prescience I find my zenith doth depend upon A most auspicious star; whose influence If now I court not, but omit, my fortunes Will ever after droop.-Here cease more questions; Thou art inclin'd to sleep; 't is a good dulness, And give it way;-I know thou canst not choose. Come away, servant, come: I am ready now; Approach, my Ariel; come. Enter ARIEL. ARI. All hail, great master! grave sir, hail! I come To answer thy best pleasure; be 't to fly, PRO. To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride On the curl'd clouds; to thy strong bidding task Ariel, and all his quality. Hast thou, spirit, Perform'd to point the tempest that I bade thee? ARI. To every article. PRO. ARI. I boarded the king's ship: now on the beak, Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin, I flam'd amazement: Sometime I'd divide And burn in many places; on the topmast, The yards, and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly, Then meet, and join: Jove's lightnings, the precursors O' the dreadful thunder-claps, more momentary And sight-outrunning were not: The fire, and cracks Of sulphurous roaring, the most mighty Neptune Seem to besiege, and make his bold waves tremble, Yea, his dread trident shake. My brave spirit! Who was so firm, so constant, that this coil Would not infect his reason? Not a soul But felt a fever of the mad, and play'd [MIRANDA sleeps. a Now my dear lady. The antecedent is Fortune, now Prospero's bountiful lady. b Seem. So the original-in modern editions seem'd. Mr. Hunter observes that Shakspere's in- tention to realise the scene, by making the past present, is thus defeated by the intermeddling of injudicious editors. SCENE II.] 541 THE TEMPEST. PRO. ARI. Some tricks of desperation: All but mariners Plung'd in the foaming brine, and quit the vessel, Then all a-fire with me: the king's son, Ferdinand, With hair up-staring, (then like reeds, not hair,) Was the first man that leap'd; cried, "Hell is empty, And all the devils are here." Why, that 's my spirit! But was not this nigh shore? PRO. But are they, Ariel, safe? ARI. PRO. ARI. Close by, my master. Not a hair perish'd ; On their sustaining garments not a blemish, But fresher than before: and, as thou bad'st me, In troops I have dispers'd them 'bout the isle: The king's son have I landed by himself; Whom I left cooling of the air with sighs, In an odd angle of the isle, and sitting, His arms in this sad knot. Of the king's ship, The mariners, say, how thou hast dispos'd, And all the rest o' the fleet. Safely in harbour Is the king's ship; in the deep nook, where once Thou call'dst me up at midnight to fetch dew From the still-vex'd Bermoothes, there she 's hid: The mariners all under hatches stow'd; Whom, with a charm join'd to their suffer'd labour, I have left asleep and for the rest o' the fleet, Which I dispers'd, they all have met again ; And are upon the Mediterranean flote, Bound sadly home for Naples; PRO. ARI. Supposing that they saw the king's ship wrack'd, And his great person perish. Ariel, thy charge Exactly is perform'd; but there's more work · What is the time o' the day? Past the mid season. PRO. At least two glasses: The time 'twixt six and now Must by us both be spent most preciously. ARI. Is there more toil? Since thou dost give me pains, Let me remember thee what thou hast promis'd, PRO. ARI. Which is not yet perform'd me. What is 't thou canst demand? How now ? moody? My liberty. 542 [ACT I. THE TEMPEST. PRO. Before the time be out? no moreª. ARI. I prithee Remember, I have done thee worthy service; b Told thee no lies, made thee no mistakings, serv'd Without or grudge, or grumblings: thou didst promise To bate me a full year. PRO. ARI. Dost thou forget From what a torment I did free thee? No. PRO. Thou dost; and think'st it much to tread the ooze ARI. Of the salt deep; To run upon the sharp wind of the north; To do me business in the veins o' the earth, When it is bak'd with frost. I do not, sir. PRO. Thou liest, malignant thing! Hast thou forgot The foul witch Sycorax, who, with age and envy, Was grown into a hoop? hast thou forgot her? ARI. No, sir. PRO. Thou hast: Where was she born? speak; tell me. ARI. Sir, in Argier. PRO. O, was she so? I must, Once in a month, recount what thou hast been, Which thou forgett'st. This damn'd witch, Sycorax, For mischiefs manifold, and sorceries terrible To enter human hearing, from Argier, Thou know'st, was banish'd; for one thing she did They would not take her life: Is not this true? ARI. Ay, sir. PRO. This blue-eyed hag was hither brought with child, And here was left by the sailors: Thou, my slave, As thou report'st thyself, wast then her servant: And, for thou wast a spirit too delicate To act her earthy and abhorr'd commands, Refusing her grand hests, she did confine thee, By help of her more potent ministers, And in her most unmitigable rage, Into a cloven pine; within which rift Imprison'd, thou didst painfully remain A dozen years, within which space she died, And left thee there; where thou didst vent thy groans, As fast as mill-wheels strike: Then was this island (Save for the son that she did litter here, a No more. We understand this,-say no more. b Thee is omitted by Steevens. SCENE II.] 543 THE TEMPEST. A freckled whelp, hag-born) not honour'd with A human shape. ARI. Yes; Caliban her son. PRO. Dull thing, I say so; he, that Caliban, ARI. Whom now I keep in service. Thou best know'st What torment I did find thee in: thy groans Did make wolves howl, and penetrate the breasts Of ever-angry bears: it was a torment To lay upon the damn'd, which Sycorax Could not again undo; it was mine art, When I arriv'd, and heard thee, that made gape The pine, and let thee out. I thank thee, master. PRO. If thou more murmur'st, I will rend an oak, ARI. PRO. ARI. And peg thee in his knotty entrails, till Thou hast howl'd away twelve winters. I will be correspondent to command, And do my spriting gently. I will discharge thee. Pardon, master: Do so; and after two days That's my noble master! What shall I do? say what: what shall I do? PRO. Go make thyself like a nymph o' the sea a; Be subject to no sight but thine and mine; invisible To every eyeball else. And hither come in 't: Go, take this shape, go, hence, with diligence. Awake, dear heart, awake! thou hast slept well ; Awake! MIRA. The strangeness of your story put PRO. Heaviness in me. Shake it off: Come on; We 'll visit Caliban, my slave, who never Yields us kind answer. MIRA. PRO. I do not love to look on. "T is a villain, sir, But, as 't is, We cannot miss him: he does make our fire, Fetch in our wood, and serves in offices That profit us. What ho! slave! Caliban! Thou earth, thou! speak. CAL. [Within.] There 's wood enough within. a The second folio reads "to a nymph of the sea. b Steevens omits thine and. COMEDIES.-VOL. II. [Exit ARIEL. PP 544 [ACT I. THE TEMPEST. PRO. Come forth, I say; there 's other business for thee: Come, thou tortoise! whena! ARI. Re-enter ARIEL, like a water-nymph. Fine apparition! My quaint Ariel, My lord, it shall be done. Hark in thine ear. PRO. Thou poisonous slave, got by the devil himself Upon thy wicked dam, come forth! Enter CALIBAN. CAL. As wicked dew as e'er my mother brush'd With raven's feather from unwholesome fen, Drop on you both! a south-west blow on ye, And blister you all o'er. PRO. For this, be sure, to-night thou shalt have cramps, Side-stitches that shall pen thy breath up; urchins Shall, for that vast of night that they may work, All exercise on thee: thou shalt be pinch'd As thick as honeycomb, each pinch more stinging Than bees that made them. CAL. I must eat my dinner. When thou camest first, This island's mine, by Sycorax my mother, Which thou tak'st from me. PRO. Thou strok'dst me, and mad'st much of me; wouldst give me Water with berries in 't; and teach me how To name the bigger light, and how the less, That burn by day and night: and then I lov'd thee, And show'd thee all the qualities o' the isle, The fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place, and fertile; Cursed be I that did so!-All the charms Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you! For I am all the subjects that you have, Which first was mine own king; and here you sty me In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me The rest of the island. Thou most lying slave, Whom stripes may move, not kindness: I have us'd thee, Filth as thou art, with human care; and lodg'd thee In mine own cell, till thou didst seek to violate The honour of my child. CAL. O ho, O ho!-'would it had been done! a When an expression of great impatience. * Vast of night. In 'Hamlet' we have "In the dead waste and middle of the night." The quarto edition of Hamlet,' 1603, reads dead vast. [Exit. SCENE II.] 545 THE TEMPEST. PRO. Thou didst prevent me; I had peopled else This isle with Calibans. Abhorred slave; Which any print of goodness will not take, Being capable of all ill! I pitied thee, Took pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hour One thing or other: when thou didst not, savage, Know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like A thing most brutish, I endow'd thy purposes With words that made them known: But thy vile race, Though thou didst learn, had that in 't which good natures Could not abide to be with; therefore wast thou Deservedly confin'd into this rock, Who hadst deserv'd more than a prison. CAL. You taught me language; and my profit on 't Is, I know how to curse: the red plague rid you, For learning me your language! PRO. CAL. Hag-seed, hence! Fetch us in fuel; and be quick, thou wert best, To answer other business. Shrugg'st thou, malice ? If thou neglect'st, or dost unwillingly, What I command, I 'll rack thee with old cramps; Fill all thy bones with aches; make thee roar That beasts shall tremble at thy din. No, pray thee!— [Aside. So, slave; hence! [Exit CAL. I must obey: his art is of such power, It would control my dam's god, Setebos, And make a vassal of him. PRO. Re-enter ARIEL invisible, playing and singing; FERDINAND following him. ARIEL'S Song. Come unto these yellow sands, And then take hands: Courtsied when you have, and kiss'd, (The wild waves whist,) Foot it featly here and thereª And, sweet sprites, the burthen bear. a The punctuation of the original is- "Courtsied when you have, and kiss'd The wild waves whist, Foot it featly here and there." Steevens explains the line in parenthesis as the wild waves being silent. If the original punc- tuation be followed, we may interpret the passage thus: When you have courtsied to the wild waves, and kissed them into silence, "Foot it featly here and there." PP 2 546 [ACT I. THE TEMPEST. BUR. ARI. Hark, hark! Bowgh, wowgh. The watch-dogs bark: Bowgh, wowgh. Hark, hark! I hear The strain of strutting chanticleer Cry, Cock-a-doodle-dooª. FER. Where should this music be? i' the air, or the earth? It sounds no more :-and sure it waits upon Some god of the island. Sitting on a bank. Weeping again the king my father's wrack, This music crept by me upon the waters ; Allaying both their fury, and my passion, With its sweet air: thence I have follow'd it, Or it hath drawn me rather:-But 't is gone. No, it begins again. ARIEL sings. Full fathom five thy father lies Of his bones are coral made; Those are pearls that were his eyes: Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange. Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell : [Dispersedly. [Burthen, ding-dong. Hark! now I hear them,—ding-dong, bell. FER. The ditty does remember my drown'd father:- This is no mortal business, nor no sound That the earth owes :-I hear it now above me. PRO. The fringed curtains of thine eye advance, And say, what thou seest yond'. MIRA. What is 't? a spirit? Lord, how it looks about! Believe me, sir, It carries a brave form:-But 't is a spirit. PRO. No, wench; it eats, and sleeps, and hath such senses As we have, such: This gallant, which thou seest, Was in the wrack; and but he's something stain'd With grief, that 's beauty's canker, thou mightst call him A goodly person: he hath lost his fellows, a We print the burden, also, as in the original. The modern editors, contrary to this, give the first “Hark, hark!" to Ariel; and there make his song terminate: whereas the last three lines give us again the voice of the delicate spirit. b We have here an absurd corruption of the text by the modern editors. When Ariel sings "Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell," the burden comes in "ding-dong;" and then Ariel again sings "Hark! now I hear them,-ding-dong, bell." The modern editors transpose the lines, and make the burden a mere chorus to Ariel's song. SCENE II.] 547 THE TEMPEST And strays about to find them. MIRA. PRO. I might call him A thing divine; for nothing natural I ever saw so noble. It goes on, I see, As my soul prompts it:-Spirit, fine spirit! I'll free thee Within two days for this. FER. Most sure, the goddess On whom these airs attend!-Vouchsafe my prayer May know if you remain upon this island; And that you will some good instruction give, How I may bear me here: My prime request, Which I do last pronounce, is, O you wonder! If you be maidª or no? MIRA. But certainly a maid. FER. PRO. No wonder, sir; My language! heavens!- I am the best of them that speak this speech, Were I but where 't is spoken. How! the best? What wert thou, if the king of Naples heard thee? FER. A single thing, as I am now, that wonders To hear thee speak of Naples: He does hear me; And that he does I weep: myself am Naples; Who with mine eyes, never since at ebb, beheld The king my father wrack'd. MIRA. Alack, for mercy! FER. Yes, faith, and all his lords; the duke of Milan, And his brave son, being twain. The duke of Milan, PRO. And his more braver daughter, could control thee, If now 't were fit to do 't:-At the first sight They have chang'd eyes:-Delicate Ariel, I'll set thee free for this!—A word, good sir; I fear you have done yourself some wrong: a word. MIRA. Why speaks my father so ungently? This Is the third man that e'er I saw; the first That e'er I sigh'd for: pity move my father To be inclin❜d my way! FER. PRO. O, if a virgin, And your affection not gone forth, I 'll make you The queen of Naples. Soft, sir! one word more.— [Aside. [Aside. a Maid. The fourth folio substituted made, which has since kept its place in many editions, amidst endless controversy. We follow the reading of the original. 548 [ACT I. THE TEMPEST. They are both in either's powers; but this swift business I must uneasy make, lest too light winning [Aside. Make the prize light.-One word more; I charge thee, That thou attend me: thou dost here usurp The name thou ow'st not; and hast put thyself Upon this island, as a spy, to win it From me, the lord on 't. FER. No, as I am a man. MIRA. There's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple : If the ill spirit have so fair a house, Good things will strive to dwell with 't. PRO. Follow me.- Speak not you for him; he 's a traitor.-Come. I'll manacle thy neck and feet together³: Sea-water shalt thou drink, thy food shall be The fresh-brook muscles, wither'd roots, and husks Wherein the acorn cradled: Follow. FER. I will resist such entertainment, till No; [To FERDINAND. Mine enemy has more power. [He draws, and is charmed from moving a. MIRA. PRO. O, dear father, Make not too rash a trial of him, for He 's gentle, and not fearful. What, I say, My foot my tutor! Put thy sword up, traitor; Who mak'st a show, but dar'st not strike, thy conscience Is so possess'd with guilt: come from thy ward; For I can here disarm thee with this stick, And make thy weapon drop. MIRA. PRO. Hence; hang not on my garments. Beseech you, father! Sir, have pity; I'll be his surety. PRO. Silence! one word more MIRA. Shall make me chide thee, if not hate thee. What! An advocate for an impostor! hush! Thou think'st there are no more such shapes as he, Having seen but him and Caliban: Foolish wench! To the most of men this is a Caliban, And they to him are angels. MIRA. My affections Are then most humble; I have no ambition a This is the original stage-direction. b Smollett suggested that gentle has here the sense of high-born, noble; and therefore cou- rageous. SCENE II.] 549 THE TEMPEST. PRO. To see a goodlier man. Come on; obey: Thy nerves are in their infancy again, And have no vigour in them. FER. PRO. So they are: My spirits, as in a dream, are all bound up. My father's loss, the weakness which I feel, The wrack of all my friends, or this man's threats, To whom I am subdued, are but light to me, Might I but through my prison once a day Behold this maid: all corners else o' the earth Let liberty make use of; space enough Have I in such a prison. It works:-Come on.- Thou hast done well, fine Ariel!-Follow me.- Hark, what thou else shalt do me. MIRA. PRO. ARI. [TO FERDINAND. [To FERD. and MIR. [To ARIEL. ! Be of comfort ; My father's of a better nature, sir, Than he appears by speech; this is unwonted, Which now came from him. Thou shalt be as free As mountain winds: but then exactly do All points of my command. To the syllable. PRO. Come, follow: speak not for him. [Exeunt. 12. trasi GRAY M ACT II. SCENE I.-Another part of the Island. Enter ALONSO, SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, GONZALO, ADRIAN, FRANCISCO, and others GON. 'Beseech you, sir, be merry: you have cause (So have we all) of joy; for our escape Is much beyond our loss: Our hint of woe Is common; every day, some sailor's wife, The masters of some merchant, and the merchant, Have just our theme of woe: but for the miracle, I mean our preservation, few in millions a Merchant is here used for merchant-vessel-merchantman. Dryden employs it in a similar way: "As convoy ships either accompany or should accompany their merchants." The masters of some merchant" signifies, therefore, the owners of some trading vessel; but in the second in- stance the "merchant" must mean the trader, whose goods are ventured in the merchantman. SCENE I.] 551 THE TEMPEST. Can speak like us: then wisely, good sir, weigh Our sorrow with our comfort. ALON. Prithee, peace. SEB. He receives comfort like cold porridge. ANT. The visitor will not give him o'er so. SEB. Look, he 's winding up the watch of his wit; By and by it will strike. GON. Sir,- SEB. One :--Tell. GON. When every grief is entertain'd that 's offer'd, Comes to the entertainer- SEB. A dollar. GON. Dolour comes to him, indeed; you have spoken truer than you purposed. SEB. You have taken it wiselier than I meant you should. GON. Therefore, my lord,— ANT. Fie, what a spendthrift is he of his tongue ALON. I prithee spare. GON. Well, I have done: But yet- SEB. He will be talking. ANT. Which, of a he, or Adrian, for a good wager, first begins to crow? SEB. The old cock. ANT. The cockrel. SEB. Done: the wager? ANT. A laughter. SEB. A match. ADR. Though this island seem to be desert,- SEB. Ha, ha, ha! ANT. So, you 're paid. ADR. Uninhabitable, and almost inaccessible,- SEB. Yet,- ADR. Yet,- ANT. He could not miss it. ADR. It must needs be of subtle, tender, and delicate temperance. ANT. Temperance was a delicate wench. SEB. Ay, and a subtle; as he most learnedly delivered. ADR. The air breathes upon us here most sweetly. SEB. As if it had lungs, and rotten ones. ANT. Or as 't were perfumed by a fen. GON. Here is everything advantageous to life ANT. True; save means to live. a The ordinary reading is which of them. The present form is quaint, but intelligible. These words, we think, belong to Sebastian. The wager is a laughter. Antonio bets that แ the cockrel” will crow first. Adrian, the young man, does crow; upon which Sebastian laughs loudly, exclaiming "So you are paid." Steevens proposes to read "you've paid," giving the words to Antonio, as in the original. We leave the text as we find it. 552 [ACT II. THE TEMPEST. SEB. Of that there 's none, or little. GON. How lushª and lusty the grass looks! how green! ANT. The ground, indeed, is tawny. SEB. With an eye of green in 'tÞ. ANT. He misses not much. SEB. No; he doth but mistake the truth totally. GON. But the rarity of it is (which is indeed almost beyond credit)— SEB. As many vouched rarities are. GON. That our garments, being, as they were, drenched in the sea, hold, not- withstanding, their freshness, and glosses; being rather new dyed than stained with salt water. ANT. If but one of his pockets could speak, would it not say, he lies? SEB. Ay, or very falsely pocket up his report. GON. Methinks, our garments are now as fresh as when we put them on first in Afric, at the marriage of the king's fair daughter Claribel to the king of Tunis. SEB. 'T was a sweet marriage, and we prosper well in our return. ADR. Tunis was never graced before with such a paragon to their queen. GON. Not since widow Dido's time. ANT. Widow? a pox o' that! How came that widow in? Widow Dido! SEB. What if he had said, widower Æneas too? good lord, how you take it! ADR. Widow Dido, said you? you make me study of that: She was of Carthage, not of Tunis. GON. This Tunis, sir, was Carthage. ADR. Carthage? GON. I assure you, Carthage. ANT. His word is more than the miraculous harp. SEB. He hath rais'd the wall, and houses too. ANT. What impossible matter will he make easy next? SEB. I think he will carry this island home in his pocket, and give it his son for an apple. ANT. And, sowing the kernels of it in the sea, bring forth more islands. GON. Ay. ANT. Why, in good time. GON. Sir, we were talking that our garments seem now as fresh as when we were at Tunis at the marriage of your daughter, who is now queen. ANT. And the rarest that e'er came there. SEB. 'Bate, I beseech you, widow Dido. ANT. O, widow Dido; ay, widow Dido. GON. Is not, sir, my doublet as fresh as the first day I wore it? I mean, in a sort. ANT. That sort was well fish'd for. a Lush is affirmed by Henley to mean rank; by Malone, juicy. We have still the low word lushy, as applied to a drunkard. b Eye of green-tinge-shade. SCENE I.] 553 THE TEMPEST. GON. When I wore it at your daughter's marriage? ALON. You cram these words into mine ears, against The stomach of my sense: 'Would I had never Married my daughter there! for, coming thence, My son is lost; and, in my rate, she too, Who is so far from Italy removed, I ne'er again shall see her. O thou mine heir Of Naples and of Milan, what strange fish Hath made his meal on thee! FRAN. Sir, he may live ; I saw him beat the surges under him, And ride upon their backs; he trod the water, Whose enmity he flung aside, and breasted The surge most swoln that met him; his bold head 'Bove the contentious waves he kept, and oar'd Himself with his good arms in lusty stroke To the shore, that o'er his wave-worn basis bow'd, As stooping to relieve him; I not doubt, He came alive to land. ALON. No, no, he 's gone. SEB. Sir, you may thank yourself for this great loss, That would not bless our Europe with your daughter, But rather lose her to an African; Where she, at least, is banish'd from your eye, Who hath cause to wet the grief on 't. ALON. Prithee, peace. SEB. You were kneel'd to, and importun'd otherwise, By all of us; and the fair soul herself Weigh'd, between lothness and obedience, at Which end o' the beam she 'd bow. We have lost your son, I fear, for ever: Milan and Naples have More widows in them of this business' making, Than we bring men to comfort them: the fault 's Your own. ALON. So is the dearest of the loss. GON. SEB. My lord Sebastian, The truth you speak doth lack some gentleness, And time to speak it in; you rub the sore, When you should bring the plaster. ANT. And most chirurgeonly. Very well. GON. It is foul weather in us all, good sir, When you are cloudy. SEB. ANT. Foul weather? Very foul. 554 [ACT II. THE TEMPEST. GON. Had I plantation of this isle, my lord,- ANT. He'd sow 't with nettle-seed. SEB. Or docks, or mallows. GON. And were the king of it, What would I do? SEB. 'Scape being drunk, for want of wine. GON. I' the commonwealth I would by contraries Execute all things; for no kind of traffic Would I admit; no name of magistrate; Letters should not be known: riches, poverty, And use of service, none; contract, succession, Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, noneª: No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil: No occupation; all men idle, all; SEB. And women too; but innocent and pure: No sovereignty:— Yet he would be king on 't. ANT. The latter end of his commonwealth forgets the beginning. GON. All things in common nature should produce Without sweat or endeavour: treason, felony, Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine, Would I not have; but nature should bring forth, Of its own kind, all foizon b, all abundance, To feed my innocent people. SEB. No marrying 'mong his subjects? ANT. None, man; all idle; whores and knaves. GON. I would with such perfection govern, sir, SEB. To excel the golden age. ANT. Long live Gonzalo! GON. 'Save his majesty! And, do you mark me, sir?— ALON. Prithee, no more: thou dost talk nothing to me. GON. I do well believe your highness; and did it to minister occasion to these gentlemen, who are of such sensible and nimble lungs that they always use to laugh at nothing. ANT. 'T was you we laugh'd at. GON. Who, in this kind of merry fooling, am nothing to you: so you may continue, and laugh at nothing still. a We have given in an illustration a passage from Florio's 'Montaigne,' which Shakspere un- questionably had before him when he wrote these lines. Malone and Steevens tell us the metre is here defective; and by a most ridiculous editorial licence Steevens sets about mending it upon the following principle:-" The words quoted from Florio's translation instruct us to regulate our author's metre as it is exhibited in my text." And this is the exhibition !— b Foizon-plenty. "Letters should not be known; no use of service, Of riches, or of poverty; no contracts, Succession, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none." SCENE I.] 555 THE TEMPEST. ANT. What a blow was there given! SEB. An it had not fallen flat-long. GON. You are gentlemen of brave mettle; you would lift the moon out of her sphere, if she would continue in it five weeks without changing. Enter ARIEL invisible, playing solemn music. SEB. We would so, and then go a bat-fowling. ANT. Nay, good my lord, be not angry. GON. No, I warrant you; I will not adventure my discretion so weakly. Will you laugh me asleep, for I am very heavy? ANT. Go sleep, and hear us. [All sleep but ALON., SEB., and ANT. ALON. What, all so soon asleep! I wish mine eyes Would, with themselves, shut up my thoughts: I find They are inclin'd to do so. SEB. ANT. Please you, sir, Do not omit the heavy offer of it: It seldom visits sorrow; when it doth, It is a comforter. We two, my lord, Will guard your person while you take your rest, And watch your safety. ALON. Thank you: wondrous heavy. [ALONSO sleeps. Exit ARIEL. SEB. What a strange drowsiness possesses them ! ANT. It is the quality o' the climate. SEB. ANT. SEB. Why Doth it not then our eyelids sink? I find not Myself dispos'd to sleep. Nor I; my spirits are nimble. They fell together all, as by consent; They dropp'd, as by a thunder-stroke. What might, Worthy Sebastian?—O, what might?—No more :— And yet, methinks, I see it in thy face, What thou shouldst be: the occasion speaks thee; and My strong imagination sees a crown Dropping upon thy head. What, art thou waking? ANT. Do you not hear me speak? SEB. I do; and, surely, It is a sleepy language; and thou speak'st Out of thy sleep: What is it thou didst say? This is a strange repose, to be asleep With eyes wide open; standing, speaking, moving, And yet so fast asleep. ANT. Noble Sebastian, 556 [ACT II. THE TEMPEST. SEB. Thou lett'st thy fortune sleep, die rather; wink'st Whiles thou art waking. Thou dost snore distinctly; There's meaning in thy snores. ANT. I am more serious than my custom: you Must be so too, if heed me; which to do SEB. Trebles thee o'er. ANT. I'll teach you how to flow. SEB. ANT. SEB. ANT. Well, I am standing water. Do so: to ebb, Hereditary sloth instructs me. 0, If you but knew how you the purpose cherish Whiles thus you mock it! how, in stripping it, You more invest it! Ebbing men, indeed, Most often do so near the bottom run, By their own fear, or sloth. Prithee say on: The setting of thine eye, and cheek, proclaim A matter from thee; and a birth, indeed, Which throes thee much to yield. Thus, sir: Although this lord of weak remembrance, this (Who shall be of as little memory, When he is earth'd) hath here almost persuaded (For he 's a spirit of persuasion, only SEB. Professes to persuadea) the king his son 's alive,— "T is as impossible that he 's undrown'd, As he that sleeps here, swims. ANT. That he 's undrown'd. I have no hope O, out of that no hope, What great hope have you! no hope, that way, is Another way so high a hope, that even Ambition cannot pierce a wink beyond, But doubts discovery there. Will you grant with me, That Ferdinand is drown'd? SEB. He's gone. ANT. Then, tell me, Who's the next heir of Naples ? SEB. Claribel. ANT. She that is queen of Tunis: She that dwells Ten leagues beyond man's life; she that from Naples a Steevens, without any compunction, omits "professes to persuade." SCENE 1.] 557 THE TEMPEST. SEB. ANT. Can have no note, unless the sun were post, (The man i' the moon 's too slow,) till new-born chins Be rough and razorable; shea, from whom We all were sea-swallow'd, though some cast again; And by that destiny to perform an act, Whereof what 's past is prologue; what to come, In yours and my discharge. What stuff is this?-How say you? "T is true, my brother's daughter 's queen of Tunis: So is she heir of Naples; 'twixt which regions There is some space. A space whose every cubit Seems to cry out, "How shall that Claribel Measure us back to Naples?"-Keep in Tunis, And let Sebastian wake!-Say, this were death That now hath seiz'd them; why, they were no worse Than now they are: There be that can rule Naples As well as he that sleeps; lords that can prate As amply and unnecessarily As this Gonzalo; I myself could make A chough of as deep chat. O, that you bore The mind that I do! what a sleep were this For your advancement! Do you understand me? SEB. Methinks I do. ANT. And how does your content Tender your own good fortune? I remember, SEB. You did supplant your brother Prospero. ANT. True: And look how well my garments sit upon me; Much feater than before: My brother's servants Were then my fellows, now they are my men. SEB. But, for your conscience— ANT. Ay, sir; where lies that? if 't were a kybe, 'T would put me to my slipper: But I feel not This deity in my bosom; twenty consciences, That stand 'twixt me and Milan, candied be they, And melt, ere they molest! Here lies your brother, No better than the earth he lies upon, If he were that which now he 's like, that 's deadª; Whom I, with this obedient steel, three inches of it, a The original reads "she that from whom.' "" In the same way Steevens omits "that's dead." What he omits, and what he inserts, would be unworthy notice, if his text were not that of nearly every reprint. In doing these bold things with the present play Steevens almost invariably invokes Dr. Farmer to his aid. 558 [ACT 11. THE TEMPEST. SEB. ANT. Can lay to bed for ever: whiles you, doing thus, To the perpetual wink for aye might put This ancient morsel, this sir Prudence, who Should not upbraid our course. For all the rest, They'll take suggestion, as a cat laps milk; They 'll tell the clock to any business that We say befits the hour. Thy case, dear friend, Shall be my precedent; as thou gott'st Milan, I'll come by Naples. Draw thy sword: one stroke Shall free thee from the tribute which thou pay'st; And I the king shall love thee. Draw together: And when I rear my hand, do you the like, To fall it on Gonzalo. SEB. O, but one word. [They converse apart. Music. Re-enter ARIEL, invisible. ARI. My master through his art foresees the danger That you, his friend ª, are in; and sends me forth, (For else his project dies,) to keep them living. While you here do snoring lie, Open-eyed Conspiracy His time doth take : If of life you keep a care, Shake off slumber, and beware: Awake! Awake! ANT. Then let us both be sudden. GON. Now, good angels, preserve the king! [Sings in GONZALO's ear. ALON. Why, how now, ho! awake! Why are you drawn? Wherefore this ghastly looking? GON. What's the matter? SEB. Whiles we stood here securing your repose, Even now, we heard a hollow burst of bellowing Like bulls, or rather lions; did it not wake you? It struck mine ear most terribly. ALON. I heard nothing. ANT. O, 't was a din to fright a monster's ear; To make an earthquake! sure it was the roar Of a whole herd of lions. ALON. Heard you this, Gonzalo? GON. Upon mine honour, sir, I heard a humming, [They awake. a This is the reading of the original. "These, his friends," is found in modern editions. SCENE II.] 559 THE TEMPEST. And that a strange one too, which did awake me: I shak'd you, sir, and cried; as mine eyes open'd, I saw their weapons drawn:-there was a noise, That 's verity: 'T is best we stand upon our guard; Or that we quit this place: let 's draw our weapons. ALON. Lead off this ground; and let 's make further search For my poor son. GON. Heavens keep him from these beasts! For he is, sure, i' the island. ALON. Lead away. ARI. Prospero my lord shall know what I have done: So, king, go safely on to seek thy son. [Aside. [Exeunt. SCENE II.-Another part of the Island. Enter CALIBAN, with a burthen of wood. A noise of thunder heard. CAL. All the infections that the sun sucks up From bogs, fens, flats, on Prosper fall, and make him By inch-meal a disease! His spirits hear me, And yet I needs must curse. But they'll nor pinch, Fright me with urchin shows, pitch me i' the mire, Nor lead me, like a firebrand, in the dark Out of my way, unless he bid them; but For every trifle are they set upon me: Sometime like apes, that moe and chatter at me, And after, bite me; then like hedgehogs, which Lie tumbling in my barefoot way, and mount Their pricks at my footfall; sometime am I All wound with adders, who, with cloven tongues, Do hiss me into madness:-Lo! now! lo! Enter TRINCULO. Here comes a spirit of his; and to torment me, For bringing wood in slowly: I'll fall flat; Perchance, he will not mind me. TRIN. Here's neither bush nor shrub, to bear off any weather at all, and another storm brewing; I hear it sing i' the wind: yond' same black cloud, yond' huge one, looks like a foul bumbard that would shed his liquor. If it should thunder as it did before, I know not where to hide my head: yond' Verity. The original has verily. COMEDIES.-YOL. II. b Wound-twisted round. Q Q 560 [ACT II. THE TEMPEST. same cloud cannot choose but fall by pailfuls.-What have we here? a man or a fish? Dead or alive? A fish: he smells like a fish; a very ancient and fish-like smell; a kind of, not of the newest, Poor-John. A strange fish! Were I in England now³, (as once I was,) and had but this fish painted, not a holiday fool there but would give a piece of silver: there would this monster make a man; any strange beast there makes a man: when they will not give a doit to relieve a lame beggar, they will lay out ten to see a dead Indian. Legged like a man! and his fins like arms! Warm, o'my troth! I do now let loose my opinion, hold it no longer; this is no fish, but an islander, that hath lately suffered by a thunder-bolt. [Thun- der.] Alas! the storm is come again: my best way is to creep under his gaberdine; there is no other shelter hereabout: Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows. I will here shroud till the dregs of the storm be past. STE. Enter STEPHANO, singing; a bottle in his hand. I shall no more to sea, to sea, Here shall I die ashore ;- This is a very scurvy tune to sing at a man's funeral: Well, here's my comfort. The master, the swabber, the boatswain, and I, The gunner, and his mate, Lov'd Mall, and Meg, and Marian, and Margery, But none of us car'd for Kate: For she had a tongue with a tang, Would cry to a sailor, "Go hang : "" She lov'd not the savour of tar nor of pitch, Yet a tailor might scratch her where'er she did itch : Then to sea, boys, and let her go hang. This is a scurvy tune too: But here 's my comfort. CAL. Do not torment me: O! [Drinks. [Drinks. STE. What's the matter? Have we devils here? Do you put tricks upon us with salvages, and men of Inde? Ha! I have not 'scaped drowning, to be afeard now of your four legs; for it hath been said, As proper a man as ever went on four legs cannot make him give ground: and it shall be said so again, while Stephano breathes at nostrils. CAL. The spirit torments me: O! STE. This is some monster of the isle, with four legs; who hath got, as I take it, an ague: Where the devil should he learn our language? I will give him some relief, if it be but for that: If I can recover him and keep him tame, and get to Naples with him, he 's a present for any emperor that ever trod on neat's-leather. CAL. Do not torment me, prithee! I'll bring my wood home faster. STE. He's in his fit now; and does not talk after the wisest. He shall taste SCENE II.] 561 THE TEMPEST. of my bottle: if he have never drunk wine afore, it will go near to remove his fit: if I can recover him, and keep him tame, I will not take too much for him he shall pay for him that hath him, and that soundly. CAL. Thou dost me yet but little hurt; thou wilt anon, I know it by thy trembling: Now Prosper works upon thee. STE. Come on your ways; open your mouth: here is that which will give lan- guage to you, cat; open your mouth: this will shake your shaking, I can tell you, and that soundly: you cannot tell who's your friend: open your chaps again. TRIN. I should know that voice: It should be-But he is drowned; and these are devils: O! defend me !— STE. Four legs, and two voices; a most delicate monster! His forward voice now is to speak well of his friend; his backward voice is to utter foul speeches, and to detract. If all the wine in my bottle will recover him, I will help his ague: Come-Amen! I will pour some in thy other mouth. TRIN. Stephano,- STE. Doth thy other mouth call me? Mercy! mercy! This is a devil, and no monster: I will leave him; I have no long spoon. TRIN. Stephano!-if thou beest Stephano, touch me, and speak to me; for I am Trinculo;-be not afeard,-thy good friend Trinculo. STE. If thou beest Trinculo, come forth; I'll pull thee by the lesser legs: if any be Trinculo's legs, these are they. Thou art very Trinculo, indeed: How camest thou to be the siege of this moon-calf? Can he vent Trinculos? TRIN. I took him to be killed with a thunder-stroke :-But art thou not drowned, Stephano? I hope now, thou art not drowned. Is the storm overblown? I hid me under the dead moon-calf's gaberdine, for fear of the storm: And art thou living, Stephano? O Stephano, two Neapolitans 'scaped! STE. Prithee, do not turn me about; my stomach is not constant. CAL. These be fine things, an if they be not sprites. That's a brave god, and bears celestial liquor: I will kneel to him. STE. How didst thou 'scape? How camest thou hither? swear by this bottle, how thou camest hither. I escaped upon a butt of sack, which the sailors heaved overboard, by this bottle! which I made of the bark of a tree, with mine own hands, since I was cast ashore. CAL. I'll swear, upon that bottle, to be thy true subject; for the liquor is not earthly. STE. Here; swear then how thou escapedst. TRIN. Swam ashore, man, like a duck; I can swim like a duck, I 'll be sworn. STE. Here, kiss the book: Though thou canst swim like a duck, thou art made like a goose. TRIN. O Stephano, hast any more of this? STE. The whole butt, man; my cellar is in a rock by the sea-side, where my wine is hid. How now, moon-calf? how does thine ague? Q Q 2 562 [ACT JI. THE TEMPEST. CAL. Hast thou not dropped from heaven? STE. Out o' the moon, I do assure thee: I was the man in the moon, when time was. CAL. I have seen thee in her, and I do adore thee; My mistress show'd me thee, and thy dog and bush. STE. Come, swear to that; kiss the book: I will furnish it anon with new contents: swear. TRIN. By this good light, this is a very shallow monster :—I afeard of him! a very weak monster :-The man i' the moon!-a most poor credulous monster: Well drawn, monster, in good sooth. CAL. I 'll show thee every fertile inch o' the island; And I will kiss thy foot: I prithee, be my god. TRIN. By this light, a most perfidious and drunken monster; when his god's asleep he 'll rob his bottle. CAL. I'll kiss thy foot: I'll swear myself thy subject. STE. Come on then; down and swear. TRIN. I shall laugh myself to death at this puppy-headed monster: a most scurvy monster! I could find in my heart to beat him,- STE. Come, kiss. TRIN. but that the poor monster 's in drink; an abominable monster! CAL. I'll show thee the best springs; I 'll pluck thee berries; I 'll fish for thee, and get thee wood enough. A plague upon the tyrant that I serve! I 'll bear him no more sticks, but follow thee, Thou wondrous man. TRIN. A most ridiculous monster! to make a wonder of a poor drunkard. CAL. I prithee let me bring thee where crabs grow, And I with my long nails will dig thee pig-nuts; Show thee a jay's nest, and instruct thee how To snare the nimble marmozet; I'll bring thee To clust'ring filberds, and sometimes I'll get thee a Young scamels from the rock: Wilt thou go with me? STE. I prithee now, lead the way, without any more talking.-Trinculo, the king and all our company else being drowned, we will inherit here.—Here ; bear my bottle. Fellow Trinculo, we 'll fill him by and by again. CAL. Farewell, master: farewell, farewell. TRIN. A howling monster; a drunken monster. CAL. No more dams I 'll make for fish; Nor fetch in firing At requiring, [Sings drunkenly. a Scamels. This is the word of the original; and we leave it as we find it. The word has been changed into sea-mells, which the commentators tell us is a species of gull. Sea-maw or sea-mew is a species of bird, and Mr. Dyce quotes a passage in which R. Holme uses sea-mall. Mr. Dyce thinks the right word is staniels-hawks which frequent high cliffs on the coast. Shakspere has staniel in Twelfth Night,' which was also misprinted. SCENE II.] 563 THE TEMPEST. Nor scrape trencher, nor wash dish; 'Ban, 'Ban, Ca-Caliban, Has a new master-Get a new man. Freedom, hey-day! hey-day, freedom! freedom, hey-day, freedom! STE. O brave monster! lead the way. [Exeunt. a Trencher-this is trenchering in the original. We agree with Mr. Dyce, that this is an error of the printer or transcriber, occasioned by the preceding words' firing' and ' requiring.' iri W.KARLEY. Osk 7. WILLIAMS. 19 ACT III. SCENE I.-Before Prospero's Cell. Enter FERDINAND, bearing a log. a FER. There be some sports are painful; and their labour Delight in them sets off: some kinds of baseness Are nobly undergone; and most poor matters Point to rich ends. This my mean task Would be as heavy to me as odious; but b The mistress which I serve quickens what 's dead, And makes my labours pleasures: O, she is a And. So the original; the common reading is but. This is the metrical arrangement of the original. Steevens changes it by the insertion of 't is. SCENE 1.] 565 THE TEMPEST. Ten times more gentle than her father 's crabbed ; And he 's compos'd of harshness. I must remove Some thousands of these logs, and pile them up, Upon a sore injunction: My sweet mistress Weeps when she sees me work; and says such baseness Had never like executor. I forget: But these sweet thoughts do even refresh my labours ; а Most busy-less a when I do it. MIRA. FER. Enter MIRANDA, and PROSPERO at a distance. Alas, now! pray you, Work not so hard; I would the lightning had Burnt up those logs that you are enjoin'd to pile ! Pray set it down, and rest you: when this burns, "T will weep for having wearied you: My father Is hard at study; pray now rest yourself; He 's safe for these three hours. The sun will set before I shall discharge What I must strive to do. MIRA. O most dear mistress, If you 'll sit down I'll bear your logs the while: Pray give me that; I'll carry it to the pile. FER. No, precious creature : I had rather crack my sinews, break my back, Than you should such dishonour undergo, While I sit lazy by. MIRA. PRO. It would become me As well as it does you: and I should do it With much more ease; for my good will is to it, And yours it is against. This visitation shows it. MIRA. Poor worm! thou art infected; You look wearily. FER. No, noble mistress; 't is fresh morning with me, When you are by at night. I do beseech you, (Chiefly, that I might set it in my prayers,) What is your name ? MIRA. Miranda :—0 my father, Admir'd Miranda ! I have broke your hest to say so! FER. a Busy-less. This is the reading of Theobald. The original has busy lest. b Steevens destroys the force of this passage by the omission of it is: "They would have ren- dered the hemistich too long to join with its successor in making a regular verse." ^ 566 [АСТ III. THE TEMPEST. Indeed the top of admiration; worth What 's dearest to the world! Full many a lady I have eyed with best regard; and many a time The harmony of their tongues hath into bondage Brought my too diligent ear: for several virtues Have I lik'd several women; never any With so full soul, but some defect in her Did quarrel with the noblest grace she ow'd, And put it to the foil: But you, O you, So perfect, and so peerless, are created Of every creature's best. MIRA. I do not know One of my sex; no woman's face remember, Save, from my glass, mine own; nor have I seen More that I may call men, than you, good friend, And my dear father: how features are abroad, I am skill-less of; but, by my modesty, (The jewel in my dower,) I would not wish Any companion in the world but you; Nor can imagination form a shape, Beside yourself, to like of: But I prattle Something too wildly, and my father's precepts I therein do forget. FER. I am, in my condition, A prince, Miranda; I do think, a king; (I would not so!) and would no more endure This wooden slavery, than to suffer The flesh-fly blow my mouth.-Hear my soul speak :- The very instant that I saw you, did My heart fly to your service; there resides, To make me slave to it; and for your sake Am I this patient log-man. MIRA. Do you love me? FER. O heaven, O earth, bear witness to this sound, And crown what I profess with kind event, If I speak true; if hollowly, invert What best is boded me, to mischief! I, Beyond all limit of what else i' the world, Do love, prize, honour you. MIRA. I am a fool, a We follow the punctuation of the original, which appears to us to render the passage much more elegant than it appears in modern editions:- "Admir'd Miranda Indeed, the top of admiration." b So the original. We have the passage now frittered down to therein forget. SCENE II.] 567 THE TEMPEST. PRO. To weep at what I am glad of. Of two most rare affections! FER. Fair encounter Heavens rain grace On that which breeds between them! Wherefore weep you? MIRA. At mine unworthiness, that dare not offer What I desire to give; and much less take What I shall die to want: But this is trifling; And all the more it seeks to hide itself, The bigger bulk it shows. Hence, bashful cunning! And prompt me, plain and holy innocence! I am your wife, if you will marry me; If not I'll die your maid: to be your fellow You may deny me; but I'll be your servant, Whether you will or no. FER. My mistress, dearest, And I thus humble ever. MIRA. My husband then? FER. Ay, with a heart as willing As bondage e'er of freedom: here 's my hand. MIRA. And mine, with my heart in 't: And now farewell, Till half an hour hence. FER. A thousand! thousand! [Exeunt FERDINAND and MIRANDA. PRO. So glad of this as they I cannot be, Who are surpris'd with all; but my rejoicing At nothing can be more. I'll to my book ; For yet, ere supper-time, must I perform Much business appertaining. [Exit. SCENE II.—Another part of the Island. Enter STEPHANO and TRINCULO; CALIBAN following with a bottle. STE. Tell not me;-when the butt is out we will drink water; not a drop before therefore bear up, and board 'em: Servant-monster, drink to me. TRIN. Servant-monster? the folly of this island! They say there's but five upon this isle: we are three of them; if the other two be brained like us, the state totters. STE. Drink, servant-monster, when I bid thee; thy eyes are almost set in thy head. TRIN. Where should they be set else? he were a brave monster indeed, if they were set in his tail. STE. My man-monster hath drowned his tongue in sack: for my part, the sea 568 [ACT III. THE TEMPEST. cannot drown me: I swam, ere I could recover the shore, five-and-thirty leagues, off and on. By this light, thou shalt be my lieutenant, monster, or my standard. TRIN. Your lieutenant, if you list; he's no standard. STE. We'll not run, monsieur monster. TRIN. Nor go neither: but you'll lie, like dogs; and yet say nothing neither. STE. Moon-calf, speak once in thy life, if thou beest a good moon-calf. CAL. How does thy honour? Let me lick thy shoe : I'll not serve him, he is not valiant. TRIN. Thou liest, most ignorant monster; I am in case to justle a constable : why, thou deboshed fish thou, was there ever man a coward that hath drunk so much sack as I to-day? Wilt thou tell a monstrous lie, being but half a fish, and half a monster? CAL. Lo, how he mocks me! wilt thou let him, my lord? TRIN. Lord, quoth he!—that a monster should be such a natural! CAL. Lo, lo, again! bite him to death, I prithee. STE. Trinculo, keep a good tongue in your head; if you prove a mutineer, the next tree-The poor monster's my subject, and he shall not suffer indignity. CAL. I thank my noble lord. Wilt thou be pleas'd To hearken once again to the suit I made to thee? STE. Marry will I kneel and repeat it; I will stand, and so shall Trinculo. Enter ARIEL, invisible. CAL. As I told thee before, I am subject to a tyrant; A sorcerer, that by his cunning hath cheated me Of the island. ARI. Thou liest. CAL. Thou liest, thou jesting monkey, thou; I would my valiant master would destroy thee: I do not lie. STE. Trinculo, if you trouble him any more in his tale, by this hand, I will supplant some of your teeth. TRIN. Why, I said nothing. STE. Mum then, and no more.-[To CALIBAN] Proceed. CAL. I say, by sorcery he got this isle; From me he got it. If thy greatness will Revenge it on him-for, I know, thou dar'st; But this thing dare not. STE. That 's most certain. a We here follow the punctuation of the original. The modern reading is off and on, by this light. b The reader will observe that Caliban always speaks metrically. Some of his lines in this scene are usually printed as prose; but they very readily shape themselves into free blank verse. Steevens receives them as metre; but he lops them after his own finger-counting fashion. SCENE II.] 569 THE TEMPEST. CAL. Thou shalt be lord of it, and I 'll serve thee. STE. How now shall this be compassed? Canst thou bring me to the party ? CAL. Yea, yea, my lord; I'll yield him thee asleep, Where thou mayst knock a nail into his head. ARI. Thou liest, thou canst not. CAL. What a pied ninny 's this! Thou scurvy patch!- I do beseech thy greatness, give him blows, And take his bottle from him: when that 's gone, He shall drink nought but brine; for I 'll not show him Where the quick freshes are. STE. Trinculo, run into no further danger: interrupt the monster one word further, and, by this hand, I'll turn my mercy out of doors, and make a stockfish of thee. TRIN. Why, what did I? I did nothing; I'll go further off. STE. Didst thou not say he lied? ARI. Thou liest. STE. Do I so? take thou that. [Strikes him.] As you like this, give me the lie another time. TRIN. I did not give the lie :-Out o' your wits, and hearing too?-A pox o' your bottle! this can sack and drinking do.—A murrain on your monster, and the devil take your fingers! CAL. Ha, ha, ha! STE. Now, forward with your tale. Prithee stand further off. CAL. Beat him enough: after a little time, I'll beat him too. STE. Stand further.-Come, proceed. CAL. Why, as I told thee, 't is a custom with him I' the afternoon to sleep there thou mayst brain him, Having first seiz'd his books; or with a log Batter his skull, or paunch him with a stake, Or cut his wezand with thy knife: Remember, First to possess his books; for without them He 's but a sot, as I am, nor hath not One spirit to command: They all do hate him, As rootedly as I: Burn but his books; He has brave utensils, (for so he calls them,) Which, when he has a house, he 'll deck withal. And that most deeply to consider, is The beauty of his daughter; he himself Calls her a nonpareil: I ne'er saw woman, But only Sycorax my dam, and she; But she as far surpasseth Sycorax, As greatest does least. STE. Is it so brave a lass? CAL. Ay, lord; she will become thy bed, I warrant, 570 [ACT III. THE TEMPEST. And bring thee forth brave brood. STE. Monster, I will kill this man: his daughter and I will be king and queen; (save our graces!) and Trinculo and thyself shall be viceroys :-Dost thou like the plot, Trinculo? TRIN. Excellent. STE. Give me thy hand; I am sorry I beat thee: but, while thou livest, keep a good tongue in thy head. CAL. Within this half-hour will he be asleep; STE. Wilt thou destroy him then? ARI. This will I tell my master. Ay, on mine honour. CAL. Thou mak'st me merry: I am full of pleasure; Let us be jocund: Will you troll the catch You taught me but while-ere? STE. At thy request, monster, I will do reason, any reason: Come on, Trinculo, let us sing. Flout 'em, and cout 'em, and skout 'em, and flout 'em ; Thought is free. CAL. That's not the tune. [Sings. [ARIEL plays the tune on a tabor and pipe. STE. What is this same ? TRIN. This is the tune of our catch, played by the picture of Nobodyº. STE. If thou beest a man, show thyself in thy likeness: if thou beest a devil, take 't as thou list. TRIN. O, forgive me my sins! STE. He that dies pays all debts: I defy thee:-Mercy upon us! CAL. Art thou afeard? STE. No, monster, not I. CAL. Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises, Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears; and sometime voices, That, if I then had wak'd after long sleep, Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming, The clouds, methought, would open and show riches Ready to drop upon me; that when I wak'd I cried to dream again. STE. This will prove a brave kingdom to me, where I shall have my music for nothing. CAL. When Prospero is destroyed. STE. That shall be by and by: I remember the story. TRIN. The sound is going away: let 's follow it, and after do our work. STE. Lead, monster; we 'll follow.-I would I could see this taborer: he lays it on. TRIN. Wilt come? I'll follow Stephano. [Exeunt. SCENE III.] 571 THE TEMPEST. SCENE III.—Another part of the Island. Enter ALONSO, SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, GONZALO, Adrian, Francisco, and others. GON. By 'r lakin, I can go no further, sir; My old bones ache: here's a maze trod, indeed, Through forth-rights and meanders"! by your patience, I needs must rest me. ALON. Old lord, I cannot blame thee, Who am myself attach'd with weariness, To the dulling of my spirits: sit down and rest. Even here I will put off my hope, and keep it No longer for my flatterer: he is drown'd Whom thus we stray to find; and the sea mocks Our frustrate search on land: Well, let him go. ANT. I am right glad that he 's so out of hope. Do not, for one repulse, forego the purpose That you resolv'd to effect. SEB. ANT. SEB. Will we take thoroughly. The next advantage Let it be to-night; For, now they are oppress'd with travel, they Will not, nor cannot, use such vigilance, As when they are fresh. I say, to-night: no more. [Aside to SEBASTIAN. Solemn and strange music; and PROSPERO above, invisible. Enter several strange Shapes, bringing in a banquet; they dance about it with gentle actions of salutation; and, inviting the King, dc., to eat, they depart. ALON. What harmony is this? my good friends, hark! GON. Marvellous sweet music! ALON. Give us kind keepers, heavens! What were these? SEB. A living drollery: Now I will believe ANT. That there are unicorns; that in Arabia There is one tree, the phoenix' throne; one phoenix At this hour reigning there. I'll believe both; And what does else want credit, come to me, And I'll be sworn 't is true: Travellers ne'er did lie,' Though fools at home condemn them. GON. If in Naples I should report this now, would they believe me? If I should say I saw such islanders ª, a Islanders. The original has islands. 572 [AOT III. THE TEMPEST. (For, certes, these are people of the island,) Who, though they are of monstrous shape, yet, note, Their manners are more gentle, kind, than of Our human generation you shall find Honest lord, PRO. Many, nay, almost any. Thou hast said well; for some of you there present Are worse than devils. ALON. I cannot too much muse Such shapes, such gesture, and such sound, expressing (Although they want the use of tongue) a kind [Aside. PRO. Of excellent dumb discourse. Praise in departing. No matter, since FRAN. They vanish'd strangely. SEB. They have left their viands behind; for we have stomachs.— Will 't please you taste of what is here? ALON. Not I. GON. Faith, sir, you need not fear: When we were boys, Who would believe that there were mountaineers Dew-lapp'd like bulls, whose throats had hanging at them Wallets of flesh? or that there were such men Whose heads stood in their breasts? which now we find, Each putter-out of five for one will bring us Good warrant of. ALON. I will stand to, and feed, Although my last no matter, since I feel The best is past :-Brother, my lord the duke, Stand to, and do as we. [Aside. Thunder and lightning. Enter ARIEL like a harpy?; claps his wings upon the table, and, with a quaint device, the banquet vanishes. ARI. You are three men of sin, whom destiny (That hath to instrument this lower world, And what is in 't) the never-surfeited sea Hath caus'd to belch up you, and on this island Where man doth not inhabit; you 'mongst men Being most unfit to live. I have made you mad; [Seeing ALON., SEB., &c., draw their swords. a This is the reading of the original-of five for one. Malone reads, of one to five; Steevens, on five to one. The putter-out is he who, being about to encounter the dangers of travel, deposits a sum of money to receive a larger sum if he returns in safety. Five for one appears to have been the rate for a very distant voyage. Five for one was therefore the technical term applied to a putter out. He puts out at the rate of five for one. b You is omitted in all modern editions. SCENE III.] 573 THE TEMPEST. And even with such-like valour, men hang and drown Their proper selves. You fools! I and my fellows Are ministers of fate; the elements, Of whom your swords are temper'd, may as well Wound the loud winds, or with bemock'd-at stabs Kill the still-closing waters, as diminish One dowlea that 's in my plume; my fellow-ministers Are like invulnerable: if you could hurt, Your swords are now too massy for your strengths, And will not be uplifted: But, remember, (For that 's my business to you,) that you three From Milan did supplant good Prospero; Expos'd unto the sea, which hath requit it, Him and his innocent child: for which foul deed The powers, delaying, not forgetting, have Incens'd the seas and shores, yea, all the creatures, Against your peace: Thee, of thy son, Alonso, They have bereft; and do pronounce, by me, Ling'ring perdition (worse than any death Can be at once) shall step by step attend You, and your ways; whose wraths to guard you from (Which here, in this most desolate isle, else falls Upon your heads) is nothing, but heart's sorrow, And a clear life ensuing. He vanishes in thunder: then, to soft music, enter the Shapes again, and dance with mops and mowes, and carry out the table. b PRO. Bravely the figure of this harpy hast thou Perform'd, my Ariel; a grace it had, devouring: Of my instruction hast thou nothing 'bated, In what thou hadst to say: so, with good life, And observation strange, my meaner ministers Their several kinds have done my high charms work, And these, mine enemies, are all knit up In their distractions: they now are in my power; And in these fits I leave them, while I visit Young Ferdinand, (whom they suppose is drown'd,) And his and my lov'd darling. [Exit PROSPERO from above. GON. I' the name of something holy, sir, why stand you In this strange stare? ALON. O, it is monstrous! monstrous ! Methought the billows spoke, and told me of it; The winds did sing it to me; and the thunder, a Dowle-a feather-a particle of down. с b Mops. In the original, mocks. • Good life-alacrity-energy-spirit. 574 [ACT III. THE TEMPEST, SEB. That deep and dreadful organ-pipe, pronounc'd The name of Prosper; it did bass my trespass. Therefore my son i' the ooze is bedded; and I'll seek him deeper than e'er plummet sounded, And with him there lie mudded. But one fiend at a time, I'll fight their legions o'er ANT. I'll be thy second. [Exit. [Exeunt SEB. and ANT. GON. All three of them are desperate; their great guilt, Like poison given to work a great time after, Now 'gins to bite the spirits :-I do beseech you, That are of suppler joints, follow them swiftly, And hinder them from what this ecstacy May now provoke them to. Adr. ČUN, VIN DELAR. ” Follow, I pray you. [Exeunt. ACT IV. SCENE I.—Before Prospero's Cell. Enter PROSPERO, FERDINAND, and MIRANDA. PRO. If I have too austerely punish'd you, Your compensation makes amends; for I Have given you here a threadª of mine own life, a Thread. This is spelt third in the original edition; in which manner thrid, in the meaning of thread, was sometimes spelt. Hawkins states that in the comedy of 'Mucedorus,' 1619, the word is spelt third in the following passage:— "Long mayst thou live, and when the sisters shall decree To cut in twain the twisted third of life, Then let him die.” The edition of 1668 is before us, and there we find that third has become thread. COMEDIES.-VOL. II. R R 576 [ACT IV. THE TEMPEST. Or that for which I live; whom once again I tender to thy hand: all thy vexations Were but my trials of thy love, and thou Hast strangely stood the test: here, afore Heaven, I ratify this my rich gift. O Ferdinand, Do not smile at me that I boast her off, For thou shalt find she will outstrip all praise, And make it halt behind her. FER. Against an oracle. I do believe it, PRO. Then, as my gifta, and thine own acquisition. Worthily purchas'd, take my daughter: But If thou dost break her virgin knot before All sanctimonious ceremonies may With full and holy rite be minister'd, b No sweet aspersion shall the heavens let fall To make this contract grow: but barren hate, Sour-ey'd disdain, and discord, shall bestrew The union of your bed with weeds so loathly, That you shall hate it both: therefore take heed, As Hymen's lamps shall light you. FER. As I hope For quiet days, fair issue, and long life, With such love as 't is now, the murkiest den, The most opportune place, the strong'st suggestion Our worser genius can, shall never melt Mine honour into lust; to take away The edge of that day's celebration, PRO. When I shall think, or Phoebus' steeds are founder'd, Or night kept chain'd below. Fairly spoke: Sit then, and talk with her, she is thine own.— What, Ariel; my industrious servant, Ariel! Enter ARIEL. ARI. What would my potent master? here I am. PRO. Thou and thy meaner fellows your last service Did worthily perform; and I must use you In such another trick: go, bring the rabble, O'er whom I give thee power, here, to this place: to see a Gift. This stands guest in the original, and was corrected by Rowe to gift. It is easy that guest is a mere typographical error. Five lines above, gift is spelt guift; and ft and ſt in ancient writing and printing were scarcely to be distinguished. ↳ Aspersion-sprinkling. This is one of the many examples of the use of Latin words by Shakspere in their original sense. SCENE I.] 577 THE TEMPEST. ARI. Incite them to quick motion; for I must Bestow upon the eyes of this young couple Some vanity of mine art; it is my promise, And they expect it from me. PRO. Ay, with a twink. Presently? ARI. Before you can say, Come, and Go, And breathe twice; and cry, So, so; Each one, tripping on his toe, Will be here with mop and mowe: Do you love me, master? no. PRO. Dearly, my delicate Ariel: Do not approach Till thou dost hear me call. Well, I conceive. ARI. PRO. Look thou be true: do not give dalliance Too much the rein: the strongest oaths are straw To the fire i' the blood: be more abstemious, FER. PRO. Or else good night your vow! I warrant you, sir. The white cold virgin snow upon my heart Abates the ardour of my liver. Well.- Now come, my Ariel: bring a corollary ª, Rather than want a spirit: appear, and pertly.- No tongue; all eyes; be silent. A Masque. Enter IRIS. IRIS. Ceres, most bounteous lady, thy rich leas Of wheat, rye, barley, vetches, oats, and pease; Thy turfy mountains, where live nibbling sheep, And flat meads thatch'd with stover, them to keep; Thy banks with pioned and twilled brims", Which spongy April at thy hest betrims, a Corollary-a surplus number. [Exit. [Soft music. b Pioned and twilled. This is the reading of the original; and a consideration of the whole passage must, we think, determine its adoption, in preference to the ordinary reading of Thy banks with peonied and lilied brims.” These are banks clothed with peonies and lilies. Milton, in the 'Arcades,' has the line- 66 By sandy Ladon's lilied banks;" and Warton observes that "here is an authority for reading lilied instead of twilled, in a very controverted verse of 'The Tempest.'" He adds, "lilied seems to have been no uncommon epi- thet for the banks of a river." Henley was the first to ask, as we think very sensibly, whether the banks of a river were meant at all, whether peonies grow on river-banks, and whether peonies and lilies come before April? To this Steevens answers that Shakspere was no naturalist,—an assertion utterly without foundation. It is manifest that the banks of a river are not meant. The address is to Ceres. Her rich leas, her turfy mountains, her flat meads, precede the mention RR 2 578 [ACT IV. THE TEMPEST. To make cold nymphs chaste crowns; and thy broom groves, Whose shadow the dismissed bachelor loves, Being lass-lorn; thy pole-clipp'd vineyard; And thy sea-marge, steril, and rocky-hard, Where thou thyself dost air: The queen o' the sky, Whose watery arch, and messenger, am I, Bids thee leave these; and with her sovereign grace, Here on this grass-plot, in this very place, To come and sport: her peacocks fly amaina : Approach, rich Ceres, her to entertain. Enter CERES. CER. Hail, many-colour'd messenger, that ne'er Dost disobey the wife of Jupiter; Who, with thy saffron wings, upon my flowers Diffusest honey-drops, refreshing showers; And with each end of thy blue bow dost crown My bosky acres, and my unshrubb'd down, Rich scarf to my proud earth: Why hath thy queen Summon'd me hither, to this short-grass'd green? IRIS. A contract of true love to celebrate; CER. And some donation freely to estate On the bless'd lovers. Tell me, heavenly bow, If Venus, or her son, as thou dost know, Do now attend the queen? Since they did plot The means that dusky Dis my daughter got, Her and her blind boy's scandal'd company of her banks. The banks are the artificial mounds by which the flat meads and the rich leas are divided; or they are the natural ridges in grove and grass-plot, which Shakspere has himself de- scribed as the home of the wild thyme and the violet. Spongy April betrims these banks at the command of Ceres; not with peonies and lilies,—not with the flowers of the garden and the flowers of the valley, mingled together without regard to season or character,—but with her own pretty hedge-flowers. The poet himself has described what flowers April scatters:- "When daisies pied, and violets blue, And lady-smocks all silver white, And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue, Do paint the meadows with delight.” What banks does April betrim at the hest of Ceres? pioned banks,—that is banks dug, thrown up. A pioneer, or pioner, is a digger. The brim of the bank is thus especially pioned. Henley says, "Twilled is obviously formed from the participle of the French verb touiller, which Cotgrave in- terprets filthily to mix or mingle; confound or shuffle together; bedirt; begrime; besmear.'" Any one who has seen the operation of banking and ditching in the early spring, so essential to the proper drainage of land, must recognise the propriety of Shakspere's epithets. He was a practical farmer; he saw the poetry even of the humblest works of husbandry. a We have here the stage-direction in the original, "Juno descends." "Her peacocks" is, in the original, “here peacocks." SCENE I.] THE TEMPEST. IRIS. CER. I have forsworn. Of her society Be not afraid; I met her deity Cutting the clouds towards Paphos; and her son Dove-drawn with her: here thought they to have done Some wanton charm upon this man and maid, Whose vows are that no bed-rite shall be paid Till Hymen's torch be lighted: but in vain; Mars's hot minion is return'd again; Her waspish-headed son has broke his arrows, Swears he will shoot no more, but play with sparrows, And be a boy right out. Highest queen of state, Great Juno comes: I know her by her gait. Enter JUNO. JUN. How does my bounteous sister? Go with me, To bless this twain, that they may prosperous be, And honour'd in their issue. JUN. CER. SONG. Honour, riches, marriage blessing, Long continuance, and increasing, Hourly joys be still upon you! Juno sings her blessings on you. Earth's increase, foison plenty, Barns and garners never empty; Vines, with clust'ring bunches growing; Plants with goodly burthen bowing; Spring come to you, at the farthest, In the very end of harvest! Scarcity and want shall shun you ; Ceres' blessing so is on you. FER. This is a most majestic vision, and PRO. Harmonious charmingly: May I be bold To think these spirits? Spirits, which by mine art I have from their confines call'd to enact My present fancies. FER. PRO. Let me live here ever; So rare a wonder'd father, and a wife, Make this place Paradise. 579 [Juno and Ceres whisper, and send Iris on employment. Sweet now, silence; Juno and Ceres whisper seriously; There's something else to do: hush, and be mute, 580 [ACT IV. THE TEMPEST. Or else our spell is marr'd. IRIS. You nymphs call'd Naiads, of the winding a brooks, With your sedg'd crowns, and ever harmless looks, Leave your crisp channels, and on this green land Answer your summons: Juno does command: Come, temperate nymphs, and help to celebrate A contract of true love; be not too late. Enter certain Nymphs. You sun-burn'd sicklemen, of August weary, Come hither from the furrow, and be merry; Make holiday your rye-straw hats put on, And these fresh nymphs encounter every one In country footing. Enter certain Reapers, properly habited; they join with the Nymphs in a graceful dance; towards the end whereof Prospero starts suddenly, and speaks; after which, to a strange, hollow, and confused noise, they heavily vanish. PRO. [Aside.] I had forgot that foul conspiracy Of the beast Caliban, and his confederates, Against my life; the minute of their plot Is almost come.-[To the Spirits.] Well done;—avoid ; -no more. FER. This is strange: your father 's in some passion That works him strongly. MIRA. Never till this day, Saw I him touch'd with anger so distemper'd. PRO. You do look, my son, in a mov'd sort, As if you were dismay'd be cheerful, sir: Our revels now are ended: these our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits, and Are melted into air, into thin air: And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve; And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack b behind: We are such stuff a Winding. The reading of the original is windring, which has been turned into wandering. Mr. Dyce adopts 'winding'-Mr. Collier 'wandering.' Rack. So the original. This word is now generally received as the true text. The rack, as explained by Bacon, means the highest clouds: "The winds, which wave the clouds above, which we call the rack, and are not perceived below, pass without noise." We may take then rack in the sense of the smallest feathery cloud,—the cirrus of modern science. Mr. Hunter has expressed his belief that the word rack is never used with the indefinite article; and he adds, “If it should turn out that to say a rack would be as improper as to say a welkin, we should be thrown back on the word wrack, which would not give a very bad sense, though, perhaps, one not so elegant as that which is afforded by the rarer word, rack." Tooke has not noticed this point; but the reading is otherwise fully discussed in the 'Diversions of Purley.' SCENE I.] 581 THE TEMPEST. As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep-Sir, I am vex'd; Bear with my weakness; my old brain is troubled. Be not disturb'd with my infirmity : If you be pleas'd, retire into my cell, And there repose; a turn or two I'll walk, To still my beating mind. FER., MIRA. We wish your peace. PRO. Come with a thought:-I thank thee:—Ariel, come. Enter ARIEL. ARI. Thy thoughts I cleave to: What's thy pleasure? PRO. We must prepare to meet with Caliban. ARI. Ay, my commander; when I presented Ceres, I thought to have told thee of it; but I fear'd Lest I might anger thee. PRO. Say again, where didst thou leave these varlets? ARI. I told you, sir, they were red-hot with drinking: So full of valour that they smote the air Spirit, For breathing in their faces; beat the ground. For kissing of their feet; yet always bending. Towards their project: Then I beat my tabor, At which, like unback'd colts, they prick'd their ears, Advanc'd their eyelids, lifted up their noses, As they smelt music; so I charm'd their ears, That, calf-like, they my lowing follow'd, through Tooth'd briers, sharp furzes, pricking goss, and thorns, Which enter'd their frail shins: at last I left them I' the filthy mantled pool beyond your cell, There dancing up to the chins, that the foul lake O'erstunk their feet. PRO. ÁRI. This was well done, my bird; Thy shape invisible retain thou still : The trumpery in my house, go, bring it hither, For stale to catch these thieves. I go, I go. [Exeunt. [Exit. a We have been asked the meaning of this passage, it being supposed that rounded was used in the sense of terminated; and that one sleep was the end of life. This was not Shakspere's philosophy; nor would he have introduced an idea totally disconnected with the preceding de- scription. Rounded is used in the sense of encompassed. The "insubstantial pageant” had been presented; its actors had "melted into thin air;" it was an unreality. In the same way, life itself is but a dream. It is surrounded with the sleep which is the parent of dreams. Here we have the shadowing out of the doctrine of Berkeley; and we have no doubt that Shakspere, to whom all philosophical speculation was familiar, may have entertained the theory that our senses are impressed by the Creator with the images of things, which form our material world,—a world of ideas,-of dream-like unrealities. 582 [ACT IV. · THE TEMPEST. PRO. A devil, a born devil, on whose nature Nurture can never stick; on whom my pains, Humanely taken, all, all lost, quite lost: And as, with age, his body uglier grows, So his mind cankers: I will plague them all, Re-enter ARIEL, loaden with glistering apparel, &c. 10 Even to roaring:-Come, hang them on this line ¹º. PROSPERO and ARIEL remain invisible. Enter CALIBAN, STEPHANO, and TRINCULO, all wet. CAL. Pray you, tread softly, that the blind mole may not Hear a foot fall: we now are near his cell. STE. Monster, your fairy, which you say is a harmless fairy, has done little better than played the Jack with us. TRIN. Monster, I do smell all horse-piss; at which my nose is in great indignation. STE. So is mine. Do you hear, monster? If I should take a displeasure against you; look you,- TRIN. Thou wert but a lost monster. CAL. Good my lord, give me thy favour still: Be patient, for the prize I 'll bring thee to Shall hoodwink this mischance: therefore speak softly, All 's hush'd as midnight yet. TRIN. Ay, but to lose our bottles in the pool,— STE. There is not only disgrace and dishonour in that, monster, but an infinite loss. TRIN. That's more to me than my wetting: yet this is your harmless fairy, monster. STE. I will fetch off my bottle, though I be o'er ears for my labour. CAL. Prithee, my king, be quiet: See'st thou here, This is the mouth o' the cell: no noise, and enter. Do that good mischief, which may make this island Thine own for ever, and I, thy Caliban, For aye thy foot-licker. STE. Give me thy hand: I do begin to have bloody thoughts. TRIN. O king Stephano! O peer! O worthy Stephano! look, what a wardrobe here is for thee! CAL. Let it alone, thou fool; it is but trash. TRIN. O, ho, monster; we know what belongs to a frippery :-O king Stephano! STE. Put off that gown, Trinculo; by this hand, I 'll have that gown. TRIN. Thy grace shall have it. CAL. The dropsy drown this fool! what do you mean, To dote thus on such luggage? Let's alone, a Let's alone. So the original. The ordinary reading is let it alone; which is good enough, and probable. Steevens has suggested that let's alone may mean-" Let you and I only go to commit the murder, leaving Trinculo, who is so solicitous about the trash of dress, behind us." SCENE I.] 583 THE TEMPEST. And do the murther first: if he awake, From toe to crown he 'll fill our skins with pinches ; Make us strange stuff. STE. Be you quiet, monster.-Mistress line, is not this my jerkin? Now is the jerkin under the line: now, jerkin, you are like to lose your hair, and prove a bald jerkin. TRIN. Do, do: We steal by line and level, an 't like your grace. STE. I thank thee for that jest: here's a garment for 't: wit shall not go unrewarded while I am king of this country: Steal by line and level, is an excellent pass of pate; there's another garment for 't. TRIN. Monster, come, put some lime upon your fingers, and away with the rest. CAL. I will have none on 't: we shall lose our time, And all be turn'd to barnacles, or to apes With foreheads villainous low. STE. Monster, lay-to your fingers; help to bear this away where my hogshead of wine is, or I'll turn you out of my kingdom: go to, carry this. TRIN. And this. STE. Ay, and this. A noise of hunters heard. Enter divers Spirits, in shape of hounds, and hunt them about. Prospero and Ariel setting them on. PRO. Hey Mountain, hey! ARI. Silver! there it goes, Silver! PRO. Fury, Fury! there, Tyrant, there! hark, hark! [CALIBAN, STEPHANO, and TRINCULO are driven out. Go, charge my goblins that they grind their joints With dry convulsions; shorten up their sinews With aged cramps; and more pinch-spotted make them, Than pard or cat o' mountain. Hark, they roar. ᎪᎡᏆ. PRO. Let them be hunted soundly: At this hour Lie at my mercy all mine enemies: Shortly shall all my labours end, and thou Shalt have the air of freedom: for a little, Follow, and do me service. + [Exeunt. THOMPSON ACT V. SCENE I.—Before the Cell of Prospero Enter PROSPERO in his magic robes; and ARIEL. PRO. Now does my project gather to a head: My charms crack not; my spirits obey; and Time Goes upright with his carriage. How's the day? ARI. On the sixth hour; at which time, my lord, You said our work should cease. PRO. I did say so, When first I rais'd the tempest. Say, my spirit, SCENE 1.] 585 THE TEMPEST. ARI. How fares the king and 's followers a? Confin'd together In the same fashion as you gave in charge; Just as you left them; all prisoners, sir, In the line-grove which weather-fends your cell; They cannot budge till your release. The king, His brother, and yours, abide all three distracted; And the remainder mourning over them, Brimfull of sorrow and dismay; but chiefly Him that you term'd, sir, "The good old lord, Gonzalo ;' His tears run down his beard, like winter's drops From eaves of reeds: your charm so strongly works them, That if you now beheld them your affections Would become tender. PRO. Dost thou think so, spirit? ARI. Mine would, sir, were I human. PRO. And mine shall. Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling Of their afflictions? and shall not myself, One of their kind, that relish all as sharply, Passion as they, be kindlier mov'd than thou art? Though with their high wrongs I am strook to the quick, Yet, with my nobler reason 'gainst my fury ARI. Do I take part: the rarer action is In virtue than in vengeance: they being penitent, The sole drift of my purpose doth extend Not a frown further: Go, release them, Ariel; My charms I'll break, their senses I 'll restore, And they shall be themselves. I'll fetch them, sir. PRO. Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves"; And ye that on the sands with printless foot Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him, When he comes back; you demi-puppets that By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make, [Exit. a And's followers. These words, says Steevens, spoil the metre without help to the sense; so he prints "How fares the king and his.” and ↳ That. All the editors omit this word, by which omission they destroy the metrical ease of the line. • The modern editors all make here a compound epithet green-sour. Douce would read green sward. Mr. Hunter agrees with Douce in his objection to the hyphen, and proposes another reading,- "By moonshine on the green sour ringlets make." But where is the necessity for change at all? Why cannot we be content to retain the double epithet of the folio? We know that the ringlets are of the green sward, and on the green; but the poet, by using the epithet green, marks the intensity of their colour. They are greener than the green about them. That they are sour he explains by "Whereof the ewe not bites." No de- scription could be more accurate of what we still call fairy-rings. 586 [ACT V. THE TEMPEST. Whereof the ewe not bites; and you, whose pastime Is to make midnight mushrooms; that rejoice To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid (Weak masters though ye be) I have bedimm'd The noontide sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds, And 'twixt the green sea and the azur'd vault Set roaring war: to the dread rattling thunder Have I given fire, and rifted Jove's stout oak With his own bolt: the strong-bas'd promontory Have I made shake; and by the spurs pluck'd up The pine and cedar: graves, at my command, Have wak'd their sleepers; op'd, and let them forth By my so potent art: But this rough magic. I here abjure: and, when I have requir'd Some heavenly music, (which even now I do,) To work mine end upon their senses that This airy charm is for, I 'll break my staff, Bury it certain fathoms in the earth, And, deeper than did ever plummet sound, I 'll drown my book. [Solemn music. Re-enter ARIEL: after him, ALONSO, with a frantic gesture, attended by GONZALO; SEBASTIAN and ANTONIO in like manner, attended by ADRIAN and FRANCISCO: they all enter the circle which Prospero had made, and there stand charmed; which Prospero observing, speaks. A solemn air, and the best comforter To an unsettled fancy, cure thy brains, Now useless, boil'da within thy skull! There stand, For you are spell-stopp'd. Holy Gonzalo, honourable man, Mine eyes, even sociable to the show of thine, Fall fellowly drops.-The charm dissolves apace; And as the morning steals upon the night, Melting the darkness, so their rising senses. Begin to chase the ignorant fumes that mantle Their clearer reason.-O good Gonzalo, My true preserver, and a loyal sir To him thou follow'st, I will pay thy graces Home, both in word and deed.—Most cruelly Didst thou, Alonso, use me and my daughter: Thy brother was a furtherer in the act;— Thou art pinch'd for 't now, Sebastian.-Flesh and blood, You brother mine, that entertain'd ambition, Expell'd remorse and nature; who, with Sebastian, a Boil'd. In the original, boil. SCENE I.] 587 THE TEMPEST. (Whose inward pinches therefore are most strong,) Would here have kill'd your king; I do forgive thee, Unnatural though thou art!-Their understanding Begins to swell; and the approaching tide Will shortly fill the reasonable shores, ARI. That now lie foul and muddy. Not one of them That yet looks on me, or would know me:-Ariel, Fetch me the hat and rapier in my cell; I will discase me, and myself present, As I was sometime Milan :-quickly, spirit; Thou shalt ere long be free. ARIEL re-enters, singing, and helps to attire Prospero. Where the bee sucks, there suck I; In a cowslip's bell I lie: There I couch when owls do cry. On the bat's back I do fly After summer merrily: Merrily, merrily, shall I live now, 12 Under the blossom that hangs on the bough¹². PRO. Why, that 's my dainty Ariel: I shall miss thee; But yet thou shalt have freedom: so, so, so.— To the king's ship, invisible as thou art: There shalt thou find the mariners asleep Under the hatches; the master, and the boatswain, Being awake, enforce them to this place; And presently, I prithee. ARI. I drink the air before me, and return Or e'er your pulse twice beat. GON. All torment, trouble, wonder, and amazement Inhabits here: Some heavenly power guide us Out of this fearful country! PRO. Behold, sir king, The wrong'd duke of Milan, Prospero : For more assurance that a living prince Does now speak to thee, I embrace thy body; And to thee, and thy company, I bid A hearty welcome. ALON. Whe'r thou beest he, or no, Or some enchanted trifle to abuse me, As late I have been, I not know: thy pulse Beats, as of flesh and blood; and, since I saw thee, The affliction of my mind amends, with which, I fear, a madness held me: this must crave (An if this be at all) a most strange story. [Exit ARIEL. [Exit ARIEL. 588 [ACT V. THE TEMPEST. [Aside to SEB. and ANT. PŘO. Thy dukedom I resign; and do entreat Thou pardon me my wrongs:-But how should Prospero Be living, and be here? First, noble friend, Let me embrace thine age; whose honour cannot GON. PRO. SEB. PRO. Be measur'd, or confin'd. Or be not, I'll not swear. Whether this be, You do yet taste Some subtilties o' the isle, that will not let you Believe things certain :-Welcome, my friends all ;— But you, my brace of lords, were I so minded, I here could pluck his highness' frown upon you, And justify you traitors; at this time I'll tell no tales. The devil speaks in him. No:- For you, most wicked sir, whom to call brother Would even infect my mouth, I do forgive Thy rankest fault; all of them; and require My dukedom of thee, which, perforce, I know Thou must restore. ALON. PRO. If thou beest Prospero, Give us particulars of thy preservation: How thou hast met us here, who three hours since Were wrack'd upon this shore; where I have lost (How sharp the point of this remembrance is!) My dear son Ferdinand. I am woe for 't, sir. ALON. Irreparable is the loss; and patience PRO. Says it is past her cure. I rather think, You have not sought her help; of whose soft grace For the like loss, I have her sovereign aid, And rest myself content. ALON. You the like loss? PRO. As great to me, as late; and supportable To make the dear loss, have I means much weaker Than you may call to comfort you; for I Have lost my daughter. ALON. A daughter? O heavens! that they were living both in Naples, The king and queen there! that they were, I wish Myself were mudded in that oozy bed Where my son lies. When did you lose your daughter? [Aside. SCENE I.] 589 THE TEMPEST. PRO. In this last tempest. I perceive these lords. At this encounter do so much admire, That they devour their reason; and scarce think Their eyes do offices of truth, their words Are natural breath: but, howsoe'er you have Been justled from your senses, know for certain That I am Prospero, and that very duke Which was thrust forth of Milan; who most strangely Upon this shore, where you were wrack'd, was landed, To be the lord on 't. No more yet of this; For 't is a chronicle of day by day, Not a relation for a breakfast, nor Befitting this first meeting. Welcome, sir; This cell 's my court: here have I few attendants, And subjects none abroad: pray you, look in. My dukedom since you have given me again, I will requite you with as good a thing; At least, bring forth a wonder to content ye, As much as me my dukedom. The entrance of the Cell opens, and discovers Ferdinand and Miranda playing MIRA. Sweet lord, you play me false. FER. I would not for the world. at chess. No, my dearest love, MIRA. Yes, for a score of kingdoms you should wrangle, And I would call it fair play. ALON. SEB. If this prove A vision of the island, one dear son Shall I twice lose. A most high miracle! FER. Though the seas threaten, they are merciful : I have curs'd them without cause. ALON. [FER. kneels to ALON. Now all the blessings Of a glad father compass thee about! Arise, and say how thou cam'st here. MIRA. PRO. O! wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, That has such people in 't! "T is new to thee. ALON. What is this maid, with whom thou wast at play? Your eld'st acquaintance cannot be three hours; Is she the goddess that hath sever'd us, And brought us thus together? 590 [ACT V. THE TEMPEST. FER. Sir, she's mortal; But, by immortal providence, she 's mine; I chose her, when I could not ask my father For his advice; nor thought I had one: she Is daughter to this famous duke of Milan, Of whom so often I have heard renown, But never saw before; of whom I have Receiv'd a second life, and second father This lady makes him to me. ALON. PRO. I am hers: But O, how oddly will it sound that I Must ask my child forgiveness! There, sir, stop; Let us not burthen our remembrances with GON. A heaviness that 's gone. I have inly wept, Or should have spoke ere this. Look down, you gods, And on this couple drop a blessed crown; For it is you that have chalk'd forth the way Which brought us hither! I say, amen, Gonzalo ! ALON. GON. Was Milan thrust from Milan, that his issue Should become kings of Naples? O, rejoice Beyond a common joy; and set it down With gold on lasting pillars: In one voyage Did Claribel her husband find at Tunis; And Ferdinand, her brother, found a wife Where he himself was lost; Prospero, his dukedom, In a poor isle; and all of us, ourselves, When no man was his own. ALON. Give me your hands: Let grief and sorrow still embrace his heart That doth not wish you joy! GON. Be 't so! Amen! [To FER. and MIR. Re-enter ARIEL, with the Master and Boatswain amazedly following. O look, sir, look, sir; here are more of us! I prophesied if a gallows were on land, This fellow could not drown: now, blasphemy, That swear'st grace o'erboard, not an oath on shore? Hast thou no mouth by land? What is the news? BOATS. The best news is that we have safely found Our king, and company: the next, our ship,- Which, but three glasses since, we gave out split, Is tight, and yare, and bravely rigg'd, as when SCENE I.] 591 THE TEMPEST. We first put out to sea. ARI. Sir, all this service Have I done since I went. [Aside. PRO. My tricksy spirit! ALON. These are not natural events; they strengthen, From strange to stranger:-Say, how came you hither? BOATS. If I did think, sir, I were well awake, I'd strive to tell you. We were dead of sleep, And (how, we know not) all clapp'd under hatches, Where, but even now, with strange and several noises Of roaring, shrieking, howling, gingling chains, And more diversity of sounds, all horrible, We were awak'd; straightway, at liberty : Where we, in all our trima, freshly beheld Our royal, good, and gallant ship; our master Capering to eye her: on a trice, so please you, Even in a dream, were we divided from them, And were brought moping hither. ARI. Was 't well done?) PRO. Bravely, my diligence. Thou shalt be free. ALON. This is as strange a maze as e'er men trod : And there is in this business more than nature Was ever conduct of: some oracle PRO. Must rectify our knowledge. Sir, my liege, Do not infest your mind with beating on The strangeness of this business: at pick'd leisure, Which shall be shortly, single I'll resolve you (Which to you shall seem probable) of every These happen'd accidents: till when, be cheerful, [Aside. And think of each thing well.-Come hither, spirit; [Aside. Set Caliban and his companions free: Untie the spell. [Exit ARIEL.] How fares my gracious sir? There are yet missing of your company Some few odd lads that you remember not. Re-enter ARIEL, driving in CALIBAN, STEPHANO, and TRINCULO, in their stolen Apparel. STE. Every man shift for all the rest, and let no man take care for himself; for all is but fortune:-Coragio, bully-monster, Coragio! TRIN. If these be true spies which I wear in my head, here's a goodly sight. CAL. O Setebos, these be brave spirits, indeed! a Our trim. So the original. The ordinary reading is her trim. Our trim expresses what Ariel had mentioned in the first Act,— "On their sustaining garments not a blemish." COMEDIES.-VOL. II. S S 592 [ACT V. THE TEMPEST. SEB. ANT. How fine my master is! I am afraid He will chastise me. Ha, ha! What things are these, my lord Antonio? Will money buy them? Very like; one of them Is a plain fish, and, no doubt, marketable. PRO. Mark but the badges of these men, my lords, Then say if they be true: this mis-shapen knave,- His mother was a witch, and one so strong That could control the moon, make flows and ebbs, And deal in her command, without her power: These three have robb'd me: and this demi-devil (For he 's a bastard one) had plotted with them To take my life: two of these fellows you Must know, and own; this thing of darkness I Acknowledge mine. CAL. I shall be pinch'd to death. ALON. Is not this Stephano, my drunken butler? SEB. He is drunk now: where had he wine? ALON. And Trinculo is reeling ripe: Where should they Find this grand liquor that hath gilded them?- How cam'st thou in this pickle ? TRIN. I have been in such a pickle, since I saw you last, that, I fear me, will never out of my bones: I shall not fear fly-blowing. SEB. Why, how now, Stephano? STE. O, touch me not; I am not Stephano, but a cramp. PRO. You'd be king o' the isle, sirrah? STE. I should have been a sore one then. ALON. This is as strange thinga as e'er I look'd on. PRO. He is as disproportion'd in his manners As in his shape :-Go, sirrah, to my cell; Take with you your companions; as you look To have my pardon, trim it handsomely. CAL. Ay, that I will; and I 'll be wise hereafter, And seek for grace: What a thrice-double ass Was I, to take this drunkard for a god, PRO. And worship this dull fool. Go to; away! ALON. Hence, and bestow your luggage where you found it. SEB. Or stole it, rather. PRO. Sir, I invite your highness, and your train, [Pointing to CAL. [Exeunt CAL., STE., and TRIN. To my poor cell where you shall take your rest a Strange thing. So the original. The ordinary reading is "strange a thing." SCENE 1.593 I. ] THE TEMPEST. For this one night; which (part of it) I 'll waste With such discourse, as, I not doubt, shall make it Go quick away: the story of my life, And the particular accidents gone by, Since I came to this isle: And in the morn I'll bring you to your ship, and so to Naples, Where I have hope to see the nuptial Of these our dear-belov'd solemnised; And thence retire me to my Milan, where Every third thought shall be my grave. ALON. PRO. I long To hear the story of your life, which must Take the ear strangely. I'll deliver all; And promise you calm seas, auspicious gales, And sail so expeditious, that shall catch Your royal fleet far off.-My Ariel;—chick,- That is thy charge; then to the elements Be free, and fare thou well!-[aside.] Please you, draw near. * ན་ [Exeunt. [Naples, from the sea S.SLY. ss 2 594 [ACT V. THE TEMPEST. EPILOGUE. Spoken by PROSPERO. Now my charms are all o'erthrown, And what strength I have 's mine own ; Which is most faint: now 't is true, I must be here confin'd by you, Or sent to Naples: Let me not, Since I have my dukedom got, And pardon'd the deceiver, dwell In this bare island, by your spell; But release me from my bands, With the help of your good hands. Gentle breath of yours my sails Must fill, or else my project fails, Which was to please: Now I want Spirits to enforce, art to enchant; And my ending is despair, Unless I be reliev'd by prayer; Which pierces so, that it assaults Mercy itself, and frees all faults. As you from crimes would pardon'd be, Let your indulgence set me free. ILLUSTRATION S. ACT I. 1 ¹ SCENE I.-" Boatswain," &c. UPON this scene Dr. Johnson has the following remark "In this naval dialogue, perhaps the first example of sailors' language exhibited on the stage, there are, as I have been told by a skilful navigator, some inaccuracies and con- tradictory orders." Malone, in reply to this, very properly pointed out that the orders should be considered as given not at once, but succes- sively, as the emergency required. In Boswell's edition we have a highly valuable communica- tion from the second Lord Mulgrave, showing most conclusively that Shakspere's technical knowledge of seamanship must have been the result of the most accurate personal observation, or, what is perhaps more difficult, of the power of combining and applying the information derived from others. Lord Mulgrave supposes Shakspere must have acquired this technical knowledge "by conversation with some of the most skilful seamen of that time." He adds, "no books had then been published on the subject." Lord Mulgrave then exhibits the ship in five positions, showing how strictly the words of the dialogue represent these. transcribe the general observations by which these technical illustrations are introduced :- We "The succession of events is strictly observed in the natural progress of the distress de- scribed; the expedients adopted are the most proper that could have been devised for a chance of safety; and it is neither to the want of skill of the seamen nor the bad qualities of the ship, but solely to the power of Prospero, that the shipwreck is to be attributed. "The words of command are not only strictly proper, but are only such as point the object to be attained, and no superfluous ones of detail. Shakspeare's ship was too well manned to make it necessary to tell the seamen how they were to do it, as well as what they were to do. "He has shown a knowledge of the new improvements, as well as the doubtful points of seamanship: one of the latter he has intro- duced under the only circumstances in which it was indisputable." Mr. Campbell gives the testimony of Captain Glascock, R.N., to the correctness of Shakspere in nautical matters :-" The Boatswain in 'The Tempest' delivers himself in the true verna- cular style of the forecastle.” 2 SCENE I.-"Down with the topmast." Lord Mulgrave has the following note on this direction:-"The striking the topmasts was a new invention in Shakspeare's time, which he here very properly introduces. Sir Henry Manwaring says, 'It is not yet agreed amongst all seamen whether it is better for a ship to hull with her topmast up or down.' In the Postscript to the Dictionary he afterwards gives his own opinion:-'If you have sea-room it is never good to strike the topmast.' Shakspeare has placed his ship in the situation in which it was indisputably right to strike the topmast— where he had not sea-room." 3 SCENE II. “I'll manacle thy neck and feet together.” We subjoin an engraving which explains this threat better than any description. 596 [ACT II. ILLUSTRATIONS. ACT II. SCENE I.-"No kind of traffic," &c. OUR readers are aware that there is in the British Museum a copy of the Essays of Mon- taigne' translated by Florio, having the auto- graph WILLM SHAKSPERE. We subjoin a passage from that volume which shows how familiar Shakspere was with its contents. It is an extract from the thirtieth chapter of the first book, describing an imaginary nation of canni- bals:- "Me seemeth that what in those nations we see by experience doth not only exceed all the pictures wherewith licentious poesy hath proudly embellished the golden age, and all her quaint inventions to fain a happy condition of man, but also the conception and desire of philo- sophy. They could not imagine a genuitie so pure and simple as we see it by experience; nor ever believe our society might be maintained with so little art and human combination. It is a nation, would I answer Plato, that hath no kind of traffic, no knowledge of letters, no intelligence of numbers, no name of magistrate, nor of politic superiority; no use of service, of riches, or of poverty; no contracts, no succes- sions, no dividences; no occupation, but idle; no respect of kindred, but common; no apparel, but natural; no manuring of lands; no use of wine, corn, or metal. The very words that import lying, falsehood, treason, dissimulation, covetousness, envy, detraction, and pardon, were never heard amongst them. How dissonant would he find his imaginary commonwealth from this perfection!” 5 SCENE II." Were I in England now," &c. It was usual for the Master of the Revels to license all public shows; and in 1632 there is an entry in the office-book of Sir Henry Herbert, "to James Seale to show a strange fish for half a year." The engraving below represents a show of the same period. SCENE III.] 597 THE TEMPEST. ACT III. • SCENE II.—" The picture of Nobody." NOBODY was a gentleman who figured on ancient signs; and, in the anonymous comedy of 'No- body and Somebody,' printed before 1600, he is represented as above. 7 SCENE III. "Here's a maze trod, indeed, Through forth-rights and meanders!" Mr. Hunter says that forth-rights here evi- dently means no more than straight lines. The passage is explained by the fact of the allusion being to an artificial maze, sometimes con- structed of straight lines (forth-rights), some- times of circles (meanders). The engraving exhibits a maze of forth-rights. 598 [ACT III. ILLUSTRATIONS. 5.SEX. 8 SCENE III. Mountaineers Dew-lapp'd like bulls.” The engraving above exhibits a sketch re- cently made from a Tyrolese peasant. It is not strange that such an extraordinary appearance of the goître should in Shakspere's time be considered as a marvel to be reckoned with the phoenix and the unicorn, and with " men whose heads stood in their breasts." 9 SCENE III.-"Enter Ariel like a harpy." This circumstance is of course taken from the 'Eneid' of Virgil. Those who maintain that Shakspere could not read the original send him to Phaer's translation :- "Fast to meate we fall. But sodenly from down the hills with grisly fall to syght, The harpies come, and beating wings with great noys out thei shright, And at our meate they snatch, and with their clawes," &c. SCENE I.] 599 THE TEMPEST. ACT IV. 10 SCENE I.-"Come, hang them on this line.” MR. HUNTER, in his 'Disquisition on The Tempest,' has a special heading, "the line- grove." He invites the friend to whom he addresses the Disquisition to accompany him to the "cell of Prospero, and to the grove or berry of line-trees by which it was enclosed or protected from the weather." He adds, "if you look for the very word line-grove in any verbal index to Shakespeare you will not find it: for the modern editors, in their discretion, have chosen to alter the line in which it occurs, and we now read- "In the lime-grove which weather-fends your cell.'” The editors, then, have substituted the more recent name of the tree for the more ancient: but the change had taken place earlier than the days of the commentators. In Dryden's altera- tion of 'The Tempest' (edit. of 1676) we have the above passage, with lime-grove. The effect of the change, Mr. Hunter says, is this:- italics. On the contrary, the tree, in connection with a grove, is printed thus,-Line-grove. 2nd. Mr. Hunter furnishes no example of the. word line, as applied to a tree, being used with- out the adjunct of tree or grove-line-tree, line- grove. The quotation which he gives from Elisha Cole is clear in this matter:-"Line- tree (tilia), a tall tree, with broad leaves and fine flowers." The other quotation which he gives from Gerard would, if correctly printed, exhibit the same thing:-"The female line,' says Gerard, or linden-tree, waxeth very great,' &c. But Gerard wrote, "The female line or linden tree waxeth," &c.; and the word tree as much belongs to line as to linden. اور و 3rd. Mr. Hunter quotes "some clumsy joking about the line, among the clowns as they steal through the line-grove with the murderous intent;" and he quotes as follows, omitting certain words, which we shall presently give :— "Ste. Mistress line, is not this my jerkin? Now is the jerkin under the line. Trin. We steal by line and level," &c. "When Prospero says to Ariel, who comes in bringing the glittering apparel, 'Come hang Now the passage really stands thus :— them on this line,' he means on one of the line-trees near his cell, which could hardly have been mistaken if the word of the original copies, line-grove, had been allowed to keep its place. But the ear having long been familiar with lime-grove, the word suggested not the branches of a tree so called, but a cord-line, and accordingly, when the play is represented, such a line is actually drawn across the stage, and the glittering apparel is hung upon it. Anything more remote from poetry than this can scarcely be imagined." This, we admit, is exceedingly ingenious; and we were at first disposed, with many others, to receive the theory with an implicit belief. A careful examination of the matter has, however, convinced us that the poet had no such inten- tion of hanging the clothes on a line-tree; that a clothes-line was destined to this office; and that the players are right in stretching up a clothes line. Our reasons are as follow:- 1st. When Prospero says "hang them on this line," when Stephano gives his jokes of "mis- tress line," and "now is the jerkin under the line," the word "line" has no characteristic mode of printing, neither with a capital, nor in "Ste. Mistress line, is not this my jerkin? Now is the jerkin under the line: now, jerkin, you are like to lose your hair, and prove a bald jerkin. Trin. We steal by line and level," &c. Is not the "clumsy joking" about lose your hair, and bald jerkin, of some importance in getting at the meaning? Steevens has observed that "the lines on which clothes are hung are usually made of twisted horse-hair." But they were especially so made in Shakspere's day. In a woodcut of twelve distinct figures of trades and callings of the time of James I. (see Smith's Cries of London,' p. 15), and of which there is a copy in the British Museum, we have the cry of "Buy a hair-line!" The "clumsy joking" would be intelligible to an audience accustomed to a hair-line. It is not intelligible according to Mr. Hunter's assertion that the word sug- gested a "cord-line." 4th. Is it likely that Shakspere would have made these drunken fellows so knowing in the peculiarities of trees as to distinguish a line-tree from an elm-tree, or a plane-tree? Is it con- ceivable that the trees in Prospero's island were so young that clothes could be hung upon their lower branches? Are the branches of a line- 600 [ACT V. ILLUSTRATIONS. tree of such a form as to hang clothes upon them, and to remove them easily? Had not the clowns a distinct image in their minds of an old-clothes shop? "We know what belongs to a frippery.” Here is a picture of "a frippery," from a print dated 1587, with its clothes hung in "line and level." Is not the joke "we steal by line and level" applicable only to a stretched line?—or is it meaningless? It has the highest approbation of King Stephano. Lastly, with reference to the clothes-line, when Mr. Hunter says "Anything more remote from poetry than this can scarcely be imagined," we answer that the entire scene was intended to be the antagonist of poetry. All the scenes in which Trinculo and Stephano are tricked by Ariel are essentially ludicrous, and, to a certain extent, gross. The "pool" through which they were hunted had none of the poetical attributes about it. It was, compared with a fountain or a lake, as the hair-line to the line-tree. Mr. Hunter contends that, "if the word of the original, line-grove, had been allowed to keep its place," the passages in the fourth Act refer- ring to line must have been associated with the line-grove of the fifth Act. The poet, we are atisfied, had no such association in his mind. iwi S.SLY. se ACT V. 11 SCENE I." Ye elves of hills.” THE invocation of Medea, in Ovid's 'Metamor- phoses,' was no doubt familiar to Shakspere when he wrote this passage, and he has used several expressions which we find in Golding's translation. We subjoin the passage from that translation, which Farmer quotes as one of his proofs that Shakspere did not know the original. The evidence in this as in every other case only goes to show that he knew the translation: - "Ye airs and winds, ye elves of hills, of brooks, of woods alone, Of standing lakes, and of the night, approach ye every one. Through help of whom (the crooked banks much won- dering at the thing) I have compelled streams to run clear backward to their spring. By charms I make the calm sea rough, and make the rough sea plain, And cover all the sky with clouds, and chase them thence again. Whole woods and forests I remove, I make the moun- tains shake, And even the earth itself to groan and fearfully to quake. I call up dead men from their graves, and thee, O light- some moon, I darken oft, though beaten brass abate thy peril soon. Our sorcery dims the morning fair, and darks the sun at noon. The flaming breath of fiery bulls ye quenched for my sake, And caused their unwieldy necks the bended yoke to take. Among the earth-bred brothers you a mortal war did set, And brought asleep the dragon fell, whose eyes were never shut.” 12 SCENE I." Where the bee sucks," &c. There are probably more persons familiar with this song in association with the music of Dr. Arne than as readers of Shakspere. The first line is invariably sung, "Where the bee sucks, there lurk 1." It is perfectly clear that lurk is not the word By charms I raise and lay the winds, and burst the viper's which Ariel would have used; and it is equally jaw; And from the bowels of the earth both stones and trees do draw. clear that the poet meant to convey the notion of a being not wholly ethereal; who required COSTUME. 601 some aliment, although the purest and the most | Bats do not migrate, as swallows do, in search delicate:- "Where the bee sucks, there suck I.” Theobald changed the word summer into sunset. Warburton supports the old reading very inge- niously:-"The roughness of winter is repre- sented by Shakspeare as disagreeable to fairies, and such like delicate spirits, who, on this account, constantly follow summer. Was not this, then, the most agreeable circumstance of Ariel's new recovered liberty, that he could now avoid winter, and follow summer quite round the globe?" But here a new difficulty arises. of summer. Steevens says that Shakspere might, through his ignorance of natural his- tory, have supposed the bat to be a bird of passage. He inclines, however, to the opinion, not that Ariel pursues summer on a bat's wing, but that after summer is past he rides upon the warm down of a bat's back. Excellent natu- ralist! Why, the bat is torpid after summer. If this exquisite song is to be subjected to this strict analysis, it is difficult to reduce all its images to the measure of fitness and propriety. The still vex'd Bermoothes."] COSTUME. THE action of this play gives us no hint as to a period in which it may be imagined to have occurred. The King of Naples and a tributary Duke of Milan are returning from Tunis, whither they have been to celebrate a marriage between "the (Neapolitan) king's fair daughter Claribel" and the King of Tunis. They are wrecked at the command of Prospero, by the agency of Ariel, who, however, informs his master that there is "on their sustaining garments not a 602 COSTUME. blemish, but fresher than before." By this ingenious contrivance the usual stage absurdity of persons who have been immersed in either salt or fresh water appearing with their gar- ments as bright and dry as if just out of a tailor's shop is avoided, and the remark of Gonzalo, that their "garments, being, as they were, drenched in the sea, hold, notwithstand ing, their freshness and glosses; being rather new dyed than stained with salt water," is rationally accounted for. That these garments should also be magnificent state dresses is pointed out by the next speech of Gonzalo, who therein describes them as having been first put on "in Afric, at the marriage of the king's fair daughter" aforesaid. With these hints we leave the artist to select any Italian costume he may consider most picturesque previous to the commencement of the 17th century: but we should recommend a glance at that given in our notice prefixed to 'The Two Gentlemen of Verona.' END OF COMEDIES, VOL. II. G. Woodfall and Son, Printers, Angel Court, Skinner Street, London (EF I ا ۱۱۱ UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN BOUND BY HM 3 9015 02218 5790 DO NOT REMOVE OR MUTILATE CARDS